IN case you’re wondering about the title of this piece, worry no further. A part of it comes from a political character in Wole Soyinka’s long playing record, Unlimited Liability Company that was released to caricature the graft, sleaze and corrupt ways of politicians of Nigeria’s so-called Second Republic, especially the ruling National Party of Nigeria, in 1983.

NINETEEN years after the pan-Nigerian mandate he won at the polls was voided by the military and 14 years after he died in incarceration fighting for the restoration of that mandate, recognition finally came the way of Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola – or so it seems.

YOUR Excellency: I have on two occasions applied for a German visa in as many years and both applications have been conference-related. If I have, as a Nigerian academic, come this far without yet visiting Germany, it is nothing short of gratuitous insult for your embassy to imagine that a visit to Germany is de rigueur for my academic career or even worse, that such a visit is for economic migrancy.

I have found it necessary to address this letter to you in view of certain developments at your Lagos Consulate with regard to visa requirements which have very adverse implications for academic practice in Nigeria. I am scheduled to attend a conference at the Cologne African Studies Centre, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne at the end of the month, precisely from May 30 to June 2, 2012.

POLARISING as the same sex marriage issue has become in America, and around the world (no thanks to the manner Americans tend to universalise matters that concern them), it simply won’t go away.