Constant harassment by DSS can’t keep me away from Nigeria –Okey Ndibe, US-based Nigerian novelist
Published 7 February 2021
American-based Nigerian scholar and novelist, Prof Okey Ndibe, tells OLADIMEJI RAMON that the Department of State Services has harassed him on his way in and out of Nigeria for 10 years
You recently wrote on your Facebook page about being stopped at the Lagos airport by DSS agents, while returning to the US. Can you narrate that encounter to us?
First, let me go to the history of such encounters—as this sort of harassment started in January of 2011. So, we’re talking of 10 years now! I was first tipped off in late 2008 that the (late President) Umaru Musa Yar’Adua regime had put me on a list of enemies of the state. Despite that information, I intended to visit Nigeria in December of that year, but some family members and friends dissuaded me. After Yar’Adua’s death in 2010, his successor, Goodluck Jonathan, flew to Washington, DC on a state visit. Two of his aides, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Jr. and Oronto Douglas—both now late—called me while Jonathan was in the US. They suggested I come to DC to meet President Jonathan. I raised two objections to the idea. One, as a columnist who focused on politics, I avoided having private meetings with major political figures. Two, I stated that Jonathan was part of an administration that had put me on a list of enemies of the Nigerian state. They called me back subsequently and said that Jonathan had ordered that the list of enemies be expunged. Believing that to be true, I flew into Lagos in January 2011. To my shock, the DSS detained me for three and a half hours in their office at Murtala Muhammed Airport. In the end, they let me leave after seizing my Nigerian and US passports. They also directed me to report to their Ikoyi office on Monday—in three days’ time. News of my detention went viral, within Nigeria and abroad. When I arrived at the agency’s office on Monday, the director apologised to me, returned my passports, and said President Jonathan had ordered my name removed from their list.