Nobel Laureate Blasts U.S. Customs Officials

LAGOS, Nigeria —  Nigeria’s Nobel literature laureate, Wole Soyinka, said he was humiliated by U.S. customs officials who searched him for drugs.

“They should be courageous enough to ban us instead of subjecting Nigerian visitors to inhuman treatment under the pretense of looking for drugs,” Soyinka was quoted in newspapers today as saying.

According to several newspapers, Soyinka said he was bewildered by his treatment on arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York last week.

“A loutish, almost visibly gloating customs officer plunged into my baggage like a dog rooting in compost,” he said.

Soyinka, one of Africa’s best-known authors, said other Nigerian passengers on his flight were also singled out for similar treatment.

Soyinka, who went to New York to attend a U.N. special assembly addressed by South African black leader Nelson Mandela, said that when he was leaving the United States a hacksaw was used to gain entry into his baggage.

Such indiscriminate searching of Nigerians is “not only obscene, but clearly illegal,” he said.

In recent years, Nigeria has become a transit center for heroin and cocaine moving from Asia and Latin America to Europe and North America.

Nigerian travelers often complain of being subjected to humiliating checks and searches for drugs.

Soyinka said the United States should concentrate its fight against drugs on consumers in its own population.