Nigeria, March 22 -- I never personally met Fidel Castro Ruz, one of the iconic figures of the 20th Century. I only saw him once in the streets of Havana while he drove and the crowds cheered. On 25 November, 2016, this African-Latin American ancestor joined the pantheon.

When on Friday, 14 March, I visited the Fidel Castro Ruz Centre in Havana, Fidel came alive for me. I was transfixed to the gun he used in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, where he led a dozen surviving youths to perform what Pentecostals will call a miracle. That foci, with the assistance of peasants and many supporters across Cuba, in twenty-five months, defeated what was then one of the strongest armies in Latin America.

A photograph of Fidel slinging his gun in the th...