The afterglow of France winning the 2018 World Cup tournament on July 15 should be gone by now. But the arguments over France’s 23-man squad, with as many as 15 players with African roots, rage on. The victory has ignited social commentaries on race, immigration and national identity across the international terrain. But it was a joke that set the cat among les pigeons. Two days after the final, Trevor Noah — host of the late-night American TV talk programme, The Daily Show — jokingly alluded to France’s World Cup triumph as an indisputable bilateral win-win for Africa(ns): "Africa won the World Cup… I get it, they have to say it’s a French team, but look at those guys. You don’t get that tan by hanging out in the South of France, my friends." As a British Nigerian — and as such part of the worldwide, transnational African diaspora community — I, along with multiple other Africans, both continental and diasporan, basked in the reflected glory of Noah’s sentiment as we congratulated ...
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