How would you have felt, Madonna?

The superstar’s adoption case has shown the powerlessness of an entire African people faced with the might of a single American woman, says Melissa Kite

Imagine the scene. Florence Okosieme, wife of a wealthy tribal leader from Nigeria, touches down at Wayne County Airport, Detroit. A limousine awaits to whisk her through the grimy streets of ‘Murder City’ to the suburb of Pontiac, where a poor family awaits her help. She grimaces as the stretch limo passes abandoned and burnt-out shells of buildings where drug gangs hover. When the car pulls up at a tiny house, she pulls her fur coat around her as if to ward off the robbers and rapists that she has heard prowl these streets at night, untroubled by an inept police force. The average annual household income in this city is less than the amount her husband spends on tailoring each year. The outlook for children who grow up here is bleak.