Nigerian software engineer asked to balance Binary Search Tree at J.F Kennedy Airport

American airports have been places where anything can happen from body searches to immigration officers detaining people but even the most seasoned traveler would be dumbfounded by the unusual experiences of a Nigerian man.

At the John F. Kennedy Airport, in New York, a Nigerian named Celestine Omin whose Twitter profile describes him as an ex software engineer (website Cyberomin)  tweeted that he had been asked to balance a Binary Search Tree by an immigration officer.

Omin said he had been too tired to think of a solution having traveled for 23 hours. The questions were given to him on an A4 sheet of paper and he was asked two questions:

Write a function to check if a Binary Tree is balanced.

What is an abstract class, and why do you need it?

Read: Port Harcourt International Airport voted ‘world’s worst airport’

After answering the questions, he was told by the immigration officer that his answers were wrong. An exhausted Omin, knackered after a long flight had given technical answers but believed that the immigration officer wanted Wikipedia descriptions.

According to LinkedIn, Omin left Lagos, Nigeria on February 26, visiting the United States for the first time on a work trip. For the last six months, Omin had been working for Andela, a startup that connects the top tech talent in Africa with employers in the U.S. Andela accepts less than 1% of applicants into its program and is backed by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan. For this particular role, Omin was helping NYC-based fintech startup First Access create a JavaScript application for emerging markets and had secured a short-term joint B1/B2 visa.

Read: Simply the best: Cape Town International Airport ranked Africa’s best airport

According to LinkedIn, Omin was not told why he was being questioned and was hushed by the immigration officer anytime he asked why he was being questioned. The Nigerian man confessed that at a point he feared he would not be allowed into the U.S.

US Department of Homeland Security. Photo: Wesley Fryer/Flickr

After a while Omin was released but that’s not before the official told him he didn’t look convincing to him. Omin later learnt that his release was based on a call to Andela and First Access which confirmed his story to the U.S Customs.

Since U.S President Donald Trump came to power, there has been an increase in detentions by customs officials. Many U.S. citizens apologised to Omin for the incident and welcomed him to their country.

https://twitter.com/AnnieTheObscure/status/836464299715391489

https://twitter.com/catherineoates1/status/836067349140668417