Tag Archives: Nigerian Students

FG Summons Turkish Ambassador Over Detention Of Nigerian Students

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The federal government has summoned Hakan Cakil, Turkish ambassador to Nigeria, over the detention of Nigerian students studying in the country.

Last week, the Turkish government allegedly ordered the arrest of 50 Nigerians. While some have been deported, others are being kept behind bars.

On Thursday, Geoffrey Onyeama, minister of foreign affairs, said the government had asked its Turkish counterpart to free the students.

“Turkish Amb. H. Cakil Summoned: Nigerian Students Release Demanded,” he wrote on Twitter.
One of the affected students had earlier told TheCable that he was captured like Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Boko Haram sect.

The electrical engineering undergraduate of the University of Fatih, said Turkish officials found nothing incriminating on him but deported him all the same.

“Well, right now, I’m inside the flight commencing my first leg of my return journey back to Abuja. After being marshalled in like Shekau that they just caught,” he had said.

“So, I came back, with an open mind considering since I was back in the country, I’ve been hearing reports about how returning students were being treated. But I felt, okay here I am, as innocent as ever, supposed to even have graduated with my set this year but for minor visa complications in that past that made me miss a semester.

“I handed my travel documents to the officer at the passport control desk. I gave him the documents, he looked that them, then asked me for my father’s name. I gave him. I didn’t think anything about it, then I saw him hysterically punching numbers in a cell phone and giving orders to people; that was when I starting getting worried.

“I still kept quiet all these while, though. Still managing to smile, until suddenly two armed policemen came next to me and demanded I follow them. I complied, still smiling even though they all were giving me hostile looks and had no kind emotions either of their faces. Anyways, they ushered me to a waiting area just close to the passport control area. Here, they made me wait for about 10 minutes; I could see them photocopying my passport, talking to one another in hurried sentences and what not. It all seemed frantic.”

Nigerian Students Sue American College For Treating Them ‘Like Animals’

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Godsgift Moses, Promise Owei, Thankgod Harold, Success Jumbo, Savior Samuel, and 30 more Nigerian students came to America hoping it would be the promised land.

It’s only fitting that “Opportunity is here” is the motto of Alabama State University, listed as one of America’s 100 Historic Black Colleges and Universities, and where they got full scholarships from a Nigerian government fund for four years of education. Instead of getting opportunity, they say the school took their country’s millions and used the money to discriminate against them.

In a lawsuit filed last week in federal court, 41 Nigerian nationals—many of whom are now Alabama State University alumni—allege the school overcharged them for books and meals, enrolled them in classes they never took, and more, all because they were black foreigners.

“They called us cash cows,” said Jimmy Iwezu, an ASU alum who claims the university intentionally mismanaged millions from a scholarship fund set up by the Nigerian government that was paid in advance for every exchange student. “I’m a black man and I’m proud to be black, but I felt discriminated against.”

The 37-year-old social work grad cites the school’s self-proclaimed autonomy to do whatever it wished with the seven-figure sum Nigeria prepaid back in 2013 for some 41 students to go to the school.

Attorney Julian McPhillips, who brought the lawsuit to court for the second time—the first attempt, back in April, accused the school of breaching its contract with Nigeria and was dismissed—suggests ASU violated Title VI civil rights.

The students allege they were shorted their deserved monies by ASU “because of their Nigerian national origin,” according to the lawsuit.

McPhillips contends ASU hammered the students with exorbitant “billing” and they weren’t “being treated like other students” when the school allegedly inflated the costs of staples like books and room and board, and repurposed the funds to pay for the school’s “bond issues” and to help front costs for “a new stadium,” and, ironically, a center for civil rights awareness.

Read More: thedailybeast

Stranded Nigerian Students Abroad Write Minister, Demand Payment Of Allowances

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Over 300 Nigerians on Federal Government Bilateral Agreement Education Scholarship Scheme abroad have petitioned the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, demanding the full payment of their 2015 stipends, including their allowances and return tickets for graduating students.

The students, under the aegis of “Ph.D and Senior Postgraduate Students on BEA Scholarship,” said they did not receive their entitlements between January and December 2015 thereby causing them hardship.

The scheme is a bilateral agreement between the Nigerian government, through the ministry of education and the federal scholarship board, and other countries to train students in various fields while the home government takes care of their upkeep during their stay in the host countries.

It is the largest federal government scholarship scheme with students in Russia, China, Ukraine, Cuba, Hungary, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria.

In the letter dated January 3, 2016 and signed by their president, O.G Ezinkwo, the students, numbering 375, told the minister that they and 600 other beneficiaries around the world had been abandoned for 11 months with no source of livelihood due to the inability of the government to promptly release their stipends.

They said the development had exposing them to very dangerous and pernicious situation in foreign lands.

They claimed that every year Nigerian scholarship students always had to be evicted from their accommodation due to inability to pay, visas and passports get expired with no funds to renew them.

They also stated that in the process some of the students became sick and could not be treated due to the lack of the mandatory health insurance and were always being threatened with expulsion on an annual basis.

Credit: PremiumTimes

ISIS Radicalizing Nigerian Students Schooling Abroad, Says FG

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The Federal government, yesterday, alerted a plan by Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) to radicalise Nigerian youth, who were schooling abroad, calling on parents and guardians to monitor their wards closely.

The Coordinator of the National Information Centre (NIC), Mr Mike Omeri stated this while briefing newsmen on security situation in the country, in Abuja, said the call became imperative based on intelligent report at the government’s disposal.

According to him, they are planning to do this through the use of the social media. “The Centre wishes to alert the nation of intelligence reports indicating the radicalisation of our youths through the social media and a variety of other sources. The reports show that these youths who are mostly children of the rich and affluent are being recruited into ISIS…”

Read More: Vanguard