LAGOS, NIGERIA (ANS) -- It was meant to be a joyful return for me to Nigeria, the land of my birth, but instead it turned into a nightmare.

Dan Wooding pictured in the Lagos cell with one of the African prisoners (Picture was smuggled out by Dan)

Some 33 years ago, I had stepped off the plane from Nairobi, Kenya, that had just landed at Lagos International Airport and I approached the immigration official’s desk. He began thumbing through my British passport and then summoned another official to come over to talk to me.

“Why are you here?” he snapped.

“I’m a journalist and I have come to write a story about an orphanage here in Nigeria,” I replied.

Not realizing that at that time you were supposed to offer a bribe to enter the country, he took me away and roughly shoved me into a cell.

“Why are you doing this?” I protested as the door slammed shut. “I was born in this country!”

He ignored my protests and I found myself in that small cell with four Africans who all looked bemused at a white man being locked up with them. I noticed that there were only four beds and there were five of us and, thankfully, one of the prisoners offered me his bed.

Executing prisoners on the beach

I had never been imprisoned before and I spent a terrible night, aware that the Nigerians were going through a period of executing prisoners by firing squad on a nearby beach and showing it live on television. I certainly didn’t want to be featured in that way on Prime Time TV in Nigeria.

I prayed harder than I had ever done before and I told the other prisoners, who were all Muslims, that I was a Christian and we spent many hours sharing our beliefs with each other.

The next morning, I was summoned before the chief immigration officer at Lagos Airport who told me that I was “not welcome” in Nigeria and that I would be deported back to Britain on the “first available flight.”

Dan's parents, Alf and Anne Wooding, pictured on their wedding day in Kano, Nigeria

He stamped my passport with “Persona Non Grata” and within a couple of hours, I said goodbye to my new-found friends, and was taken, a rifle butt pushed in my back, and frog-marched to the waiting plane that would take me back to Gatwick Airport, just outside of London.

I had only been locked up for one night, but I began to understand what it was like for my brothers and sisters around the world who were being imprisoned for their faith. I hadn’t been singled out because I was a Christian, but because I didn’t pay a bribe, but now, for the first time, I understood the horror of incarceration and what the writer to the Hebrews meant when he wrote in chapter 13, verse 3, “Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.”

There hasn’t been a day since then that I haven’t remembered in prayer those in prison in around the world for their faith.

However, there was a humorous conclusion to this story. A few weeks after my return to London, I discovered that the Nigerian delegation to the Commonwealth Conference where to hold a VIP reception in the British capital. So, I called their embassy and asked if I could attend. I didn’t expect to be told that I could as my case had been raised in the British House of Commons by Bill Molloy, the then MP for Ealing North, in which he condemned the Nigerian Government for the way I had been treated.

But amazingly, they invited me and there I met all the leaders of the then Military Government of Nigeria.

I was heralded into the room by someone, who, with a booming voice, announced my presence by saying, “Mr. Dan Wooding, journalist.”

Within minutes I was surrounded by the leaders all in their full military uniforms and one of them asked me if I had ever visited his country.

“Yes, I’ve just been there, but it was a very short visit,” I said with a slight smile.

“You must stay longer next time,” he replied.

I hadn’t the heart to tell him that I wasn’t so sure that I wanted a longer visit, if the circumstances were the same. After all, one night in a Nigerian cell was long enough for me.

Note: Dan was born in Nigeria in December 1940 to Alf and Anne Wooding, British missionaries from Liverpool, England. He is still hoping that one day he can safely return to the land of his birth.

Dan Wooding, 69, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 46 years. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS). He was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC., and now hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on KWVE in Southern California and which is also carried on the Calvary Radio Network throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK. Wooding also a regular contributor to The Weekend Stand on the Crawford Broadcasting Network, and a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries. He is the author of some 43 books. Two of the latest include his autobiography, “From Tabloid to Truth”, which is published by Theatron Books. To order a copy, press this link. Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, also recently released “God’s Ambassadors in Japan” which is available at amazon.com.