El Gran Musty

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you @FranceInNigeria, you are far too kind. J'aurais écrit ceci en français, mais mon français n'est pas assez fort pour ce que je ressens à ce sujet. S'il vous plait. Merci. My passport has been returned by @FranceInNigeria. Eight (8) weeks they held it. In their characteristic generosity toward Africans, they have issued me a visa for six (6) weeks. Let me be clear about what this means in context. This is the shortest Schengen visa I have ever received from the French Embassy. My first, over a decade ago, was six months. The one before this lasted a year. The one before that, a year. There is a four-year Schengen visa somewhere in my records. On the very passport now graced with this extraordinary six-week stamp sit multiple-year visas from the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Canada. Six weeks. For eight weeks of custody. The mathematics of French generosity toward Africa is its own genre. Thank you @EmmanuelMacron. I know people who got their passports back after my first tweet on this matter. One had hers held for five weeks (5). It came back without a visa. No stamp. Just a passport returned having contributed nothing to her life but five weeks of immobility. Thankfully, they did not minute on it; a small mercy in an otherwise graceless process. Graceful, I meant to write. This is not new territory for me. My very first engagement with the French Embassy over a decade ago ended in a visa rejection that came with written text stamped directly onto my passport. I wrote them a four-page letter demanding they never deface a Nigerian passport that way again; mine or anyone else's. I want to acknowledge that they have honoured that. Some things, at least, can be changed by speaking clearly. Some bad faith readers will conclude this six-week visa is punishment for calling them out publicly. I reject that interpretation entirely. I prefer to see it as consistent with France's broader approach to the continent — an approach the France-Africa Summit in Nairobi will no doubt reaffirm with great warmth, generous speeches, and many photographs. A pattern, not an anomaly. I will be writing a full article next week to express my appreciation to @FranceInAfrica in the spirit this moment deserves. I write this ready to bear whatever consequences follow. But I will write. After all, it's a love letter. Merci beaucoup. cc @NigeriaMFA @BTOofficial @Ojukwu_Bianca @France24 @abikedabiri @francediplo_EN @GermanyInAfrica @officialABAT @WilliamsRuto @CNNAfrica @BBC @FRANCE24 @ARISEtv @DW_GMF @dwnews