A Nigerian man took to his social media page on Facebook to recount his bitter experience in the hands of DSS operatives at the Murtala Mohammed international Airport.
The man claimed the DSS operatives wanted to arrest him based on an article he had released earlier but waas saved because of his American citizenship.
Read a recount of his encounter below:
“It was Friday, 15th day of April 2016. I arrived at MM intl airport for a scheduled flight back to the U.S., I checked in my luggage and went through immigration to the boarding area. Immediately as I walked away from the immigration scanning area two plain clothed men walked to me; they brought out a photograph of me printed, I guessed, from my blog.
They asked, “are you Madukar Orji? I said “yes.” They identified themselves as State Security officers. Though I expected this on my arrival, not on departure, I was caught off guard. They brought out about three articles from my big written by me of course. One of them, with chaotic intimidating voice said, “it is Nigerians like you abroad that write rubbish about the country.
Calmly I replied, “I don’t know what many write, but I do not write rubbish, I write nothing but truth.” I went further to exemplified my points in relation to the articles they had. They stood still for seconds without response.
At this point they asked for my passport and boarding pass. They said to me, “it seems your journey has come to an end here.” I said nothing, but gently smiled. In an unintended chorus both men said, “so you are an American citizen? Where is your Nigerian passport?” I said “I am an American, I don’t have Nigerian passport.”
One of them left with the passport. About 30 minutes later he came back, handed me my passport without a word, and I collected it back without a word too. He then said, “you can go.” I left to board my flight, though still have about 5 hours to wait.
To cool off the harassment I found a relaxing zone in MM Heineken Bar.
Throughout the encounter neither was I shaken nor surprised. I had a mindset it might come, hence I traveled”
