₦airaland Forum

Is it a crime to smoke now? I thought it's a personal thing.

It think Ogundamisi rushed a little to his conclusions. There are too many variables when travelling across borders to pull off such interview successfully, except you own a private jet.

PDP's preparations for Anambra is not an excuse not to participate in a 1-hr show. And did I hear that the "Director of Publicity" can't speak for his party cos he was not elected? What a lazy excuse!

It's not too late to organize another show when Mr Mohammed is back in Nigeria. Okey Ndibe can also dial in via Skype in case he's gone back to the US then. This opportunity should not be missed by PDP/APC.

And I agree that Mr Mohammed needs a media/tech assistant.

What can they do? Jokers!

I agree. It's also a reminder that we should fix our country too. We can't run forever.

Yes, he'll make a good senator. He'll expose them and bring in radical ideas that'll favor the masses in the long run.

Abeg leave them alone o. Na their "oyel" money. Before they start accusing us of envy.

Thanks Obiageli for providing this info, and for shaming the smelly rats on this thread.

Good job!

Nice one. A positive story to read, for a break.

pressure cookers, backpacks and quinoa, oh my!

It was a confluence of magnificent proportions that led six agents from the joint terrorism task force to knock on my door Wednesday morning. Little did we know our seemingly innocent, if curious to a fault, Googling of certain things was creating a perfect storm of terrorism profiling. Because somewhere out there, someone was watching. Someone whose job it is to piece together the things people do on the internet raised the red flag when they saw our search history.

Most of it was innocent enough. I had researched pressure cookers. My husband was looking for a backpack. And maybe in another time those two things together would have seemed innocuous, but we are in “these times” now. And in these times, when things like the Boston bombing happen, you spend a lot of time on the internet reading about it and, if you are my exceedingly curious news junkie of a twenty-year-old son, you click a lot of links when you read the myriad of stories. You might just read a CNN piece about how bomb making instructions are readily available on the internet and you will in all probability, if you are that kid, click the link provided.

Which might not raise any red flags. Because who wasn’t reading those stories? Who wasn’t clicking those links? But my son’s reading habits combined with my search for a pressure cooker and my husband’s search for a backpack set off an alarm of sorts at the joint terrorism task force headquarters.

That’s how I imagine it played out, anyhow. Lots of bells and whistles and a crowd of task force workers huddled around a computer screen looking at our Google history.

This was weeks ago. I don’t know what took them so long to get here. Maybe they were waiting for some other devious Google search to show up but “what the hell do I do with quinoa” and “Is A-Rod suspended yet” didn’t fit into the equation so they just moved in based on those older searches.

I was at work when it happened. My husband called me as soon as it was over, almost laughing about it but I wasn’t joining in the laughter. His call left me shaken and anxious.

What happened was this: At about 9:00 am, my husband, who happened to be home yesterday, was sitting in the living room with our two dogs when he heard a couple of cars pull up outside. He looked out the window and saw three black SUVs in front of our house; two at the curb in front and one pulled up behind my husband’s Jeep in the driveway, as if to block him from leaving.

Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread out as they walked toward the house, two toward the backyard on one side, two on the other side, two toward the front door.

A million things went through my husband’s head. None of which were right. He walked outside and the men greeted him by flashing badges. He could see they all had guns holstered in their waistbands.

“Are you [name redacted]?” one asked while glancing at a clipboard. He affirmed that was indeed him, and was asked if they could come in. Sure, he said.

They asked if they could search the house, though it turned out to be just a cursory search. They walked around the living room, studied the books on the shelf (nope, no bomb making books, no Anarchist Cookbook), looked at all our pictures, glanced into our bedroom, pet our dogs. They asked if they could go in my son’s bedroom but when my husband said my son was sleeping in there, they let it be.

Meanwhile, they were peppering my husband with questions. Where is he from? Where are his parents from? They asked about me, where was I, where do I work, where do my parents live. Do you have any bombs, they asked. Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked.

They searched the backyard. They walked around the garage, as much as one could walk around a garage strewn with yardworking equipment and various junk. They went back in the house and asked more questions.

Have you ever looked up how to make a pressure cooker bomb? My husband, ever the oppositional kind, asked them if they themselves weren’t curious as to how a pressure cooker bomb works, if they ever looked it up. Two of them admitted they did.

By this point they had realized they were not dealing with terrorists. They asked my husband about his work, his visits to South Korea and China. The tone was conversational.

They never asked to see the computers on which the searches were done. They never opened a drawer or a cabinet. They left two rooms unsearched. I guess we didn’t fit the exact profile they were looking for so they were just going through the motions.

They mentioned that they do this about 100 times a week. And that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing. I don’t know what happens on the other 1% of visits and I’m not sure I want to know what my neighbors are up to.

45 minutes later, they shook my husband’s hand and left. That’s when he called me and relayed the story. That’s when I felt a sense of creeping dread take over. What else had I looked up? What kind of searches did I do that alone seemed innocent enough but put together could make someone suspicious? Were they judging me because my house was a mess (Oh my god, the joint terrorism task force was in my house and there were dirty dishes in my sink!). Mostly I felt a great sense of anxiety. This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do.

All I know is if I’m going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I’m not doing it online.

I’m scared. And not of the right things.

CLARIFICATION AND UPDATE

We found out through the Suffolk Police Department that the searches involved also things my husband looked up at his old job. We were not made aware of this at the time of questioning and were led to believe it was solely from searches from within our house.

I did not lie or make it up. I wrote the piece with the information that was given. What was withheld from us obviously could not be a part of a story I wrote based on what happened yesterday.

The piece I wrote was the story as we knew it with the information we were told. None of it was fabricated. If you know me, you know I would never do that.

If it was misleading, just know that my intention was the truth. And that was what I knew as the truth until about ten minutes ago. That there were other circumstances involved was something we all were unaware of.

Thank you.

dotNaira: Are you saying they should not have used it because it was the federal government that brought it back to life?
I stand to be corrected, I don't think any meaningful APC member have criticized the revival of rail system. It is a welcome development, but you guys politicize everything.
Even the rail system you are jumping about, was it not borrowed money from China and other countries that the federal government used in bringing it back, despite being the 8th highest exporter of petroleum in the world?

You left the main point of the story which is about salah festival and you turned it to politics.

Kudos to the federal government for reviving the dead rail system and osun government for using the rail system wisely by making transportation easy during the festive period.

God bless Nigeria.

Are you minding those clannish primitives? They must turn everything into politics. I hope they watched Jonathan's condolence visit to Fashola in Lagos? Those are the people they want to get a heart attack over.

What a clown! Does he think any Yoruba still pays him any attention? He should go and naturalise in Anambra. Agbaya alainitiju, alatenuje!

Oya, kidnappers & armed robbers work don start.

I sincerely advise those NEPA guys to take a loooong vacation.

Pls include VIEWER DISCRETION in the subject. This is rather graphic.

He's only being sarcastic. Water and oil don't mix.

You call them big boys, I call them criminals who have bled Nigeria onto its deathbed.

Good news from Ogun state. More of this kind of news please. We can all see the good quality leadership that's in the SW.

The interview shows that most of the champions of APC think alike and know exactly where they're going. I trust them enough to support whoever they field as candidates.

I'm really hoping they'll field Madam Ezekwesili as VP though. That'll be a first in Nigeria and will definitely help capture SE votes. Just thinking aloud.

takeprofit: i smell hypocrisy. why judge the mafians if u cant judge the gays. maybe he is afraid of the gays. if we want to be fair, we should delete the word sin from the bible and scrap the ministry of justice. "who r we to judge another man?"

There's a big difference between d 2. He's condemning the mafia cos they harm people, while he's not judging gays cos they harm no one.

Arysexy: Y would Nigeria break? After ur Awo-ole n Gowon sacrificed over 3 million children nd women lives to keep Nigeria as one? Y would a Yoruba that wanted one nigeria so much now start thinking of Nigeria breaking? u r eyeing our investment in Lagos right? is lagos all about Yoruba? Shame to u confused lazy bunch of cowards who think the easiest way to beat ndigbo out of competition is by heating up the polity, cause chaos n inherit our investment, NEVER! if this should result to another war, i swear by my blood u guys will see our true colour.

LOL
Hear empty barrel, children of Israel. What have you done to Boko Haram that's been killing you in thousands?

If you guys used this energy to develop your states, the East would have become Dubai. And FYI, nobody has an eye in your frigging businesses - you'll take 'em with you. We are not lazy.

pistol: And how is that your freaking business..
U guys should get into your skulls that Lagos state is a melting pot for all Nigerians..
The outcome of this unfolding drama will permanently have that fact tattoed and sketched into your skulls.

Melting pot koo, melting candle ni. You guys are just a joke and apparently refused to learn from history. If Nigeria breaks up today, you'll so lose.

Change the name of this thread to "Nairaland for Dummies."

seedord247: Agbero Chairman..... The best job in south west so far.

Erosion analysts

This is a fair assessment of Jonathan's performance so far, by someone from the Niger Delta for that matter. I wish him and his wife what they deserve.

The aborigines are at it again.

Onlytruth: That is what I like most about Jona. He is a smooth (meek and gentle) operator.
He gets things fixed quietly, one by one.

You're absolutely right. Exactly the same way he ensured that

-we now have electricity 24/7
-we now export refined petroleum products rather than import
-our roads are now in perfect condition
-our healthcare is now superb that people now come to Nigeria from other countries for medical care
-corruption has been reduced to the barest minimum
-all corrupt govt officials have been sent to jail
-our universities are now so good that people don't need to go to "common" Cotonou for university education
etc etc

It could have been any book. That is if the bible really didn't burn o. Moreover, if God really cared about you, shouldn't he have prevented the accident from happening in the first place? Or is God unable to prevent that, but able to stop the bible from burning?

Africans, we really need to get a life and stop all these dumb, superstitious beliefs. You obviously were driving (and probably speeding & lost control) in hazardous road conditions and were lucky to escape unhurt.

oh i can't wait, "thank god"

Never mind

We need to eradicate religion from the world - its breeds confusion & backwardness.

50calibre: Whats the horse power of that Cadillac ELR? i know its hybrid, notwithstanding, I'm disappointed at the engine. How can they fit a car as beastly as a Cadillac with a meagre 1.4L, 4-Cylinders?

Cadillacs used to represent power and that vehicle should be packing at least a 3.0L 6 cylinder

Unfortunately, things are changing. The US govt is demanding 54.5mpg for new cars from 2025.

That's why everyone is adjusting. Not to worry though; we're going to start seeing "muscle" electrics in a few years time. The only sad part is that you won't be seeing too many water-dripping exhausts anymore.