Nigerian Man Forced Off Easy-Jet Plane

Nigerian man was forced off a plane, a man by the name Laolu Opebiyi from London, was forced off an Easyjet plane by armed police after a fellow passenger spied on a message on his mobile phone.

The prayer incident happened at Luton airport  and traveller saw a conversation on Opebivi’s phone, in the messaging group WhatsApp, and misread the title of the group ‘Isi men’ as ‘Isis men’.

Forty-years old Opebiyi, a business analyst, was then asked what he was doing by the passenger next to him, who then went to the cockpit demanding to get off the plane, followed by six others. Two armed police officers then arrived and told Opebiyi to pick up his belongings and get off the plane too.

Opebiyi said he was then forced by the police to hand over his phone and give up his passwords to prove he was not a terrorist, while also being questioned whether he planned to convert to Islam.

A detective subsequently questioned and cleared Opebiyi but the pilot refused to allow him back on to the flight to Amsterdam and he was forced to wait more than three hours for the next scheduled departure.

He believes the passenger next to him assumed he was a Muslim and jumped to the conclusion that he may be a terrorist.

Easyjet has apologised for the inconvenience caused to “That guy doesn’t know me and within two minutes he’s judging me,” he said. “Even if I was a Muslim, it was pretty unfair the way I was treated. I don’t think anyone, irrespective of their religion should be treated in such a way. “If we keep on giving into this kind of bigotry and irrational fear, I dare say that the terrorists will have achieved their aim.”

‘Isi’ is a short version of the Bible proverb: “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another”. It is often used by Christians to describe how prayer and discussing the Bible can improve people involved.

A spokesman for easyJet said: “The safety and security of its passengers and crew is our highest priority which means that if a security concern is raised we will always investigate it as a precautionary measure. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused to the passenger.”