A Nigerian business analyst, Onyedika Ezeh, was allegedly detained for six weeks in Qatar after airport security officials reportedly mistook decorative stones inside a mannequin head for narcotics at the Hamad International Airport, Doha.
The incident, said to have occurred on May 7, 2025, has sparked legal action against Qatar Airways, with Ezeh’s lawyers demanding compensation, public retractions and diplomatic intervention over alleged racial profiling, unlawful detention and human rights violations.
Details of the incident were contained in a pre-action notice issued by his counsel, Inibehe Effiong, and addressed to the airline’s Abuja office.
According to the notice, Ezeh was travelling from Abuja to Dallas, Texas, via Doha to visit his wife, a PhD student at Baylor University, when his carry-on luggage containing a mannequin head was flagged during transit screening.
Although field tests reportedly returned negative results and the stones were later confirmed by an airport jeweller to be valueless and chemically inactive, Qatari security officials allegedly escalated the matter, with one officer reportedly remarking that “Nigerians are always causing trouble.”
The notice stated that Ezeh was handcuffed, subjected to a degrading strip search and detained at a facility known as Duhaill, where he was allegedly forced to sign a document in Arabic falsely describing the stones as “cocaine stones.”
He was reportedly held without charge for six weeks while forensic tests were conducted, during which time his United States visa was revoked, alongside his wife’s, forcing her to abandon her doctoral programme.
Ezeh was eventually released on June 19, 2025, after laboratory results reportedly showed no narcotics, with an official document later confirming there was “no criminal prosecution due to lack of a crime.”
His lawyers are demanding a formal apology, withdrawal of all allegations, refund of his unused flight ticket, engagement with U.S. authorities to restore the couple’s visas and compensation for damages, giving Qatar Airways 14 days to respond.
As of the time of filing this report, the airline had yet to issue an official response.
