Over 50 Nigerian students were yesterday
arrested in Turkey, allegedly on the orders of the government, THISDAY
has reliably gathered. A source whose relative was among the detained
students stated that “upon arrival at Ataturk International Airport in
Istanbul, they were all escorted to a room and their passport
confiscated by Turkish police.”
The detained Nigerians are mainly
students of Fathi University, one of the private universities in Turkey.
The school which is located in the metropolitan Büyükçekmece
district of Istanbul, Turkey was founded in 1996 with a relatively
high rate of international students from 102 countries. “When they
enquired why they were clamped in a dirty room, the police said they are
students of a terrorist organisation. They offered to transfer them
to government schools but on the condition that we will pay same fees as
private universities,” the source added.
The Fathi University is among the 2099
schools, dormitories and universities shut down in the wake of the July
15th failed coup in Turkey. The Turkish authorities said the schools and
universities were terrorist schools because they have links with
Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish government had accused
of being the mastermind of the coup in Turkey. It would also be
recalled the Turkish Ambassador in Nigeria Mr. Hakan Cakil, had
requested the Nigerian authorities to close down 17 Turkish schools in
Nigeria for alleged links to the Hizmet movement.
The Nigerian Authorities rejected
the call, stating that it would rely on evidence linking the proprietors
of the schools in Nigeria to the failed coup in Turkey. In exclusive
pictures obtained by THISDAY, students could be seen lying down on the
bare floor in a room that could barely be habitable. Our source also
hinted of a particular case of a Nigerian by name Aminat, a final
year student in one of the universities affected by the closure at the
time of the coup. The source said: “Aminat came to the airport to travel
to Nigeria since her school had been shut, but to her surprise, she was
asked to pay a penalty for entering the country illegally. She paid the
fine, and she was kept, alongside others in the same room with people
waiting to be deported.” THISDAY also gathered that some of those
detained at the airport were made to sign documents giving their
consent to deportation from Turkey. An e-mail to the Turkish em- bassy
on why the students were detained was not responded to as at the time of
going to press.
THISDAY
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