'Turkish schools in Nigeria will not be closed'

Turkish schools in Nigeria will not be shut by the host country as against the request made by their ambassador to the west African nation. This clarification was necessary after initial reports stated that Hakan Cakil made a call for the closure of 17 ‘Turkish’ schools in Nigeria following  the failed coup in their country. But this call has been described as ‘a spurious request’ by the authorities of the Turkish international colleges in a statement on their website, obtained by Premium Times. Orhan Kertin, the managing director of the school in a signed statement had written: “But for the fact that the statement contained misleading information, we would not have dignified it with a response. “But as law-abiding schools operating in Nigeria since 1998, we owe Nigerians a duty to expose the ulterior motives of the Turkish Ambassador in the said statement.” 

 

Turkish ambassador reveals Cakil had during a visit by Shehu Sani, the vice chairman, Senate committee on Foreign Affairs, on Thursday, July 28, stated that the schools have links with a movement his government believed was involved in the failed coup attempt in Turkey. “We are requesting the Nigerian Government to close down the schools. “In Nigeria, there are 17 schools, which belong to the Gulen Movement, one in Kano, one in Kaduna, one in Abuja, Lagos etc and they are offering scholarships. “We are starting some legal procedures to take the name of Turkish out of the name of the schools. They are not the schools of the Turkish Government. “They are misleading the public and allocating scholarships to the children of the high bureaucracy and after they graduate from school, they send the children to Turkey to attend their universities,” the Turkish ambassador was quoted to have said. The Nigerian Turkish colleges has however, insisted that the schools were created to provide a conducive environment for teaching and learning in order to produce youths who become productive members of the Nigerian society. Kertim said: “The NTIC is not a Turkish government run institution, but a privately funded institution by a group of Turkish investors. “As a responsible organisation operating in Nigeria since 1998, we are conversant with the laws of the land and we have to the best of our ability abided by these stipulations. “Nigeria is a sovereign country and the call by the Turkish Ambassador is not only an affront to the sovereignty of the Nigerian nation but a display of the crass ignorance.” This comes as the United Bank of Africa (UBA) also clarified reports linking it to the funding of the failed coup plotted in Turkey. In a press statement made released by the bank on Tuesday evening, it countered the claims by a Turkey-based newspaper, Yenisafak, that some of those arrested in connection with the July 15, 2016 failed coup plot implicated UBA as its sponsors. According to the earlier report, the suspects said a United States Army General, John F. Campbell, championed the funding of the failed coup. It was added that the funds used was in the region of $2 billion and was moved from the United States into UBA Plc and where the coup plotters allegedly withdrew the monies from.