Early February 1989. A blue helicopter, partly tinted in green and white, emerged from the clouds of Kanyang, in Nigeria’s Cross River state. Gabriel Osanja, then 22, stood among the crowd peering up. The night before, as he tarried in thoughts at the fireside, a moment like this had seemed remote, even dreamy. And yet, when he found himself within arm’s length of Prince Philip, the duke of Edinburgh, Osanja’s emotions froze. His peers in school, lining both sides of a walkway, received Philip with loud cheers, but Osanja managed only a wave of his hand and a salute. The simply dressed duke, O…

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