Lindsay Barrett and Mia Mottley: The Pull of the Diaspora, by Owei Lakemfa

Lindsay Carlton Eseoghene Barrett was a twenty-five-year-old Jamaican when he came from Britain to Nigeria in July 1966 on a few weeks’ visit. Those weeks have stretched to over sixty years, with the playwright, poet, journalist and photographer becoming one of the best-known Nigerians.
He was eighty-five years on September 15, and not unexpectedly, I met some unique Nigerians in his Abuja home, where we turned out to celebrate him. There was Chief Wole Olaoye, with five decades of insightful column writing under his belt. The veteran told those at the table that, with my writing two columns weekly on Nigeria and international affairs in the past three decades, I had become the most pro...