BREAKING: DSS arrests US-based journalist, Prof. Okey Ndibe, at Lagos airport

Professor Okey Ndibe, a popular Nigerian novelist and journalist who arrived in Nigeria this Monday morning, June 1, 2026, has been arrested and held for hours at Murtala Mohammed International Airport at Ikeja, Lagos.

“His detention on arrival has been a regular occurrence since the days of President Goodluck Jonathan for his critical articles on the Nigerian leadership,” according to his close friend, C. Don Adinuba, who is a former Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment in Anambra State,

Adinuba expressed shock over Ndibe’s arrest and detention, noting that “he has not been writing in the Nigerian media in the last two years, as he concentrates on book writing and teaching at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, his alma mater.”

Continuing, Adinuba said: “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.

“It is a pity that this agency doesn’t update its data base to enable the officers on duty at the airport to know that the agency does no longer regard Prof Ndibe as a security threat to the administration.

“The agency has on each occasion apologized to him for the wrongful detention”.