Operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS), on Sunday, accosted and questioned a US-based Nigerian author and columnist, Professor Okey Ndibe, at Murtala Muhammed International Airport before releasing him hours later.
Reports said Ndibe, who has lived in the US since 1998, was held at the DSS office in Lagos and grilled over his appearance on the agency’s watch-list.
DSS operatives reportedly told the columnist that his “arrest” was based on the watch-list and advised him to travel to Abuja to get his name removed to avoid future detention.
Ndibe declined.
“I told the SSS that it’s a shame a country that rolls out the red carpet for criminals would harass a writer who wages war on corruption and the corrupt,” he said.
This is not Ndibe’s first run-in with the secret police. In January 2011, DSS detained him for hours at the same airport and confiscated his American and Nigerian passports for two days.
His passport was seized again years later and only released after civil society groups mounted public pressure.
Ndibe, who has taught in several institutions abroad, is a long-time critic of government and corruption. The DSS gave no public reason for the latest detention as of press time.
Don Adinuba, a former Commissioner in Anambra State and friend of Ndibe, said: “It’s a pity DSS still treats Ndibe as security threat. They apologise every time after Abuja calls”
The former Anambra Commissioner for Information expressed shock at the latest arrest of the US-based columnist, noting Ndibe hasn’t written for Nigerian media in two years as he focuses on books and teaching at University of Massachusetts Amherst.
“On each occasion he was arrested in the past, he would be released after the airport DSS officials got in touch with their superiors in Abuja,” Adinuba said.
“It is a pity that this agency doesn’t update its database to enable the officers on duty at the airport to know that the agency no longer regards Prof Ndibe as a security threat to the administration.
“The agency has on each occasion apologized to him for the wrongful detention.”
Ndibe, who left Nigeria in 1998, has been detained multiple times at MMIA since 2011 over his critical columns. Each time, DSS released him after Abuja intervention and apologized, Adinuba confirmed.