"Coolea! Coolea!" rang the chorus around the arrivals floor of Dublin airport, and you half expected to see a football team from west Cork emerge through passport control.
But many of the faces in this throng are black, and then you realise what they're chanting: "Kunle! Kunle!"
And then Ireland's most famous deportee emerges, a surprisingly small, slight figure still wearing the school jersey that played so large a part in securing his return here.
A Tricolour is thrust in his hands as he is engulfed by the crowd, and the 20-year-old Leaving Cert student is hoisted high in the air by his friends. Black and white, Irish and non-national, they work together to carry him aloft.
A necklace of microphones is thrust in his face as the photographers jostle for pole position. From his precarious perch, Kunle responds to the questions with profuse thanks for everyone who campaigned on his behalf - students, parents and priests. He even thanks the Minister for the change of mind that has allowed him to return.
As the cheering grows louder and the jostling intensifies, cameras are dropped, tempers flare briefly and Kunle even gets a bang on his head.
But the mood remains determinedly good-humoured as he is waltzed out towards a waiting minibus.
"It's just like Italia '90," says one student, who must have been a toddler during that particular World Cup.
"Does he have a girlfriend?" asks a journalist. "He didn't, but he won't be short of one now," comes the reply.
With Kunle safely deposited in the back of the bus, the fuss abates. "Phew, that was a bit hectic," says Neil Burke, the Palmerstown student at the centre of the campaign for his classmate's return. "I never thought in my wildest dreams that it would succeed. We're just really on a high at the moment. It's great to see everyone here," he said.
There are more Nigerians here than were evident during the campaign to have Kunle returned. Some of them have been issued with deportation orders and say his case has given them hope.
"It's amazing grace," says Victor, who arrived in Ireland with Kunle. "He is so charismatic, everyone loves him."
Another friend, Tunde Oladejo, appeals to the authorities to let other Nigerians return. "We all have friends who want to come back to take care of the children. They are missing them badly."
Within a few minutes, Kunle is gone. It is doubtful, someone suggests, that any other Nigerian has passed through Dublin airport so quickly.
