Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman/CEO, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) has demanded that justice must be served accordingly on the sudden death of a 25-year old Nigerian student in Northern Cyprus, Mr Ibrahim Khaleel Bello and others killed in such mysterious circumstances in the country.
She made this passionate plea following a petition by Hon. Justice Amina Ahmad Bello, a Judge in Kaduna state High Court on the mysterious and , inexplicable death of her son, a third year civil Engineering Degree student of Girne American University in Girne (Kyrenia), Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ( TRNC) via Mersin 10, Turkey in Abuja on Monday.
Dabiri-Erewa called on parents to be weary of sending their wards to Northern Cyprus as the country is not recognized by the United Nations except the Republic of Turkey, adding that Nigeria has no diplomatic ties with that country.
She insisted that the Country should be blacklisted given the preponderance of Nigerian Students who have died mysteriously in that country without any prosecution or compensation whatsoever.
She assured the delegation led by Justice Bello, that NIDCOM will work with the Ministry of Justice, Nigerian Mission in Turkey and other relevant agencies to ensure justice is done , saying “ the death of Ibrahim khaleel Bello should be a tipping point to end the continuous killings of Nigerian students in that Country.”
Dabiri-Erewa reiterated her appeals to Nigerian parents to desist in sending their children to Northern Cyprus for any studies as most of the courses are not accredited and they end up killing the children., many of them unreported .
” The time has come for us to blacklist all these Universities in Northern Cyprus and advise our students from seeking any form of admission there as it portends danger to their life and future”, she said.
She added that the office of the Attorney General of the Federation has already reported the matter to Interpol for further investigation.
Earlier in an emotion laden voice, Justice Amina Ahmad Bello, mother of the deceased, said her insistence on justice was not only for her son but also other Nigerian Students who have died mysteriously in the Girne American University Girne (Kyrenia), and other Universities in Northern Cyprus.
She narrated how her son was allegedly murdered and covered up by the authorities in Northern Cyprus as welll as the University authorities claiming it was a suicide mission having fallen from a seven-storey building.
She insisted that the report be investigated and all those found culpable be prosecuted as there was nothing to show that her son committed suicide.
Justice Bello said hours before her son was killed, she spoke with him, and he was expressing fears on his safety in the University environment.
” I don’t believe it was an accident or a suicide as i went to Cyprus barely 24 hours it happened and got to the mortuary where there was no scratch or wound on his body.
” I suspected foul play that my son was killed as the school was non- challant in breaking the news to me on my arrival there”
Justice Bello said hours before the boy died, he sent her a WhatsApp message that ” Mama, Please I want to come back home. Wallahi if i stay here, I will just die here without anybody batting an eyelash. I just need to come back home. Mama please try to understand that this isn’t a place for me”.
She alleged that it is possible some of the killed Nigerian students vital organs were harvested as her son’s stomach was opened and sutured when the corpse was finally released
The late Ibrahim Khaleel Bello was among about 100 Nigerians killed and murdered in mysterious circumstances from 2016 to 2020 without prosecuting any of the assailants.
Other victims include, Kennedy Taomwabwa Dede, 28, student of Eastern Mediterranean University and was killed on Feb. 1, 2018, Walshak Augustine Ngok, a student of Marine Engineering at Near East University, murdered on April 19, 2019.
Others were Gabriel Soriwei, a first year student of Electrical Electronics of Cyprus International University, Nicosia, Osabanjo Adeola Owoyale, 33, went missing and found dead on July 1, 2019.
The list include Augustine Wallies killed on April 19, 2019, Stanley Eteimo, 28 years, Hassan Babatunde, 28, murdered, Temitayo Adigun, killed, Kubiat Abasi Abraham Okon, 24, killed, Oziegbe Gospower Airekugose and Olasubomi Ope among others not reported.
Signed
Gabriel Odu,
Media, Public Relations and Protocol Unit,
NIDCOM
Article from last July, 2019, published in the Cyprus Mail newspaper, on the subject of the Nigerian student deaths
https://cyprus-mail.com/2019/07/21/sorry-end-for-africans-on-education-island/
Sorry end for Africans on ‘education island’
By CM Guest Columnist July 21, 2019
By Esra Aygin
The body of a 33-year-old Nigerian student, who had been missing since July 1, was found in the boot of a car in central Nicosia last week. He had been beaten and stabbed to death, bound, wrapped in a blanket and left to rot.
Obasanje Adeola Owoyalr was not the first African student brutally murdered in the northern part of Cyprus recently. In April 2019, another Nigerian, 25-year-old Walshak Augustine Ngok, was beaten to death and dumped in a field off a highway near Nicosia. In January 2018, the 28-year-old Nigerian Kennedy Taomwabwa Dede was kidnapped and beaten to death near a lake in Famagusta.
A non-negligible number of other African students on this “education island” – as the northern part of Cyprus is advertised in African and Central Asian countries – have died in recent years falling off balconies and roofs under suspicious conditions, or have been found dead in their rooms. Commentators point to a wide array of problems arising from the higher education policy of the northern part of Cyprus, which could be summarised as ‘opening as many universities as possible and attracting as many students as possible.’
The higher education sector, which is one of the engines of the Turkish Cypriot economy, has grown in an uncontrolled fashion in the last decade as one university after another opened its doors to a flood of overseas students. There currently are some 103,000 students in a total of 20 universities. The lucrativeness of the business, coupled with the ease with which student visas are issued, and lack of controls or supervision over whether individuals entering the northern part of Cyprus on a student visa are indeed going to school, boosted the foreign student numbers. The number of foreign students increased sevenfold from around 5,000 in 2010 to over 35,000 last year. Some 20,000 of those foreign students are from African countries, mostly Nigeria.
As of January 2019, three additional universities have received permits to start receiving students, seven have received permits to be established, and nine others are awaiting permits. A number of these universities are owned by big businessmen, who, in some cases, also own casinos, and even some Turkish politicians.
A report titled “Problems faced by foreign students in Cyprus” by the Eastern Mediterranean University Academic Staff Union DAU-SEN published earlier this year points to the lack of necessary infrastructure and conditions to ensure the welfare of these foreign students, and the existence of malicious agents or middlemen, who exploit them. In many cases, they are falsely promised low tuition fees, accommodation and access to good jobs by agents working for the universities in the northern part of Cyprus, but end up being exploited as cheap labour under slavery conditions, forced into prostitution or drug trafficking, according to the report.
“It has been determined that agents give incorrect information to African students, telling them that north Cyprus is a visa-free European country,” the report says. “The students are faced with the increasing costs of the school and the agents. They find out that promises of scholarships and accommodation are empty words. They realise that the budget they have will be insufficient and start struggling to survive.”
“The flow, which began with good students from Africa, has in time turned into soft human trafficking,” said Senior Researcher Mete Hatay of PRIO Cyprus Centre. “Hundreds of unemployed Africans are accepting agents’ offers and coming to Cyprus to find a job and build a better future.”
In fact, the plight of African students in the northern part of Cyprus was the inspiration for Booker prize nominee author Chigozie Obioma’s second book An Orchestra of Minorities. Nigerian Obioma was himself a student here from 2007 to 2012, during which time he witnessed the death of a fellow Nigerian student, who had been duped into coming to Cyprus and ended up dying after – according to police – accidentally falling off a roof.
The car the body was found in last week
In an article he penned for the Guardian in 2016, Obioma explains: “None of the students… knew that northern Cyprus was… not Europe; it was not America; it was not Asia; it was not even Turkey… Its streets were ramshackle, its infrastructure second rate. There were no jobs. There were no amenities, no opportunities… They came bursting with hope and expectations to a desert of stark, paralysing disappointment.”
Director Mine Yucel of The Center for Migration, Identity and Rights Studies, highlights that student visas, in some cases are also being used as a way to legitimise illegal dealings. The DAU-SEN report seconds Yucel’s findings. “Among those Africans, who arrive in Cyprus on a student visa, are some, who are from the world of crime and who, after registering in a university for just one semester, engage in all kinds of illegal activities such as drug trafficking, prostitution and money laundering. Many students have stated that some act as agents and force vulnerable students into prostitution, threaten and intimidate them and even apply physical violence. Economic hardships push students to drugs both as users and sellers.”
In fact, a paragraph in the US State Department’s 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report refers to the higher education sector in the northern part of Cyprus: “Men and women enrolled as university students, particularly from Sub-Saharan African countries, are vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labour. As in previous years, observers reported a number of women entered the ‘TRNC’ on three-month tourist or student visas and engaged in prostitution… some may be trafficking victims.”
It is unfortunately not surprising that in a place where vulnerabilities are exploited by malicious or criminal circles so many students are forced into illegal activities, and necessary control and protection mechanisms are not in place, many African students are being murdered or losing their lives under questionable circumstances, according to the commentators.
“We have turned into a sick community that exploits or allows the exploitation of foreign students,” said Yucel. “Is there anyone here, who can still take pride in being an ‘education island?’”
We shall build our own Education Island. See Zee Nagberi for Details.
Cyprus is a peaceful country I’m in Cyprus and still studying I have never seen Cypriot guys killed Nigerians or other African. I have only heard about Nigerians killing themselves bcos of money gotten from illegal business.
Please NIDCOM should investigate well before concluding. Also news headlines should be authentic and not faked to make parent afraid.
[…] Cyprus has been trending as a result of the reported killing of a Nigerian student by the name of Ibrahim Khaleel in an ‘unexplainable […]
Justice needs to be done. This place (North Cyprus) is becoming something…
These so called leaders do not want anything good for us. The fact that ibraheem died does it have to affect everything in the country. Who killed him? He has gotten to his bus stop. The country is secured that if anyone kills.the some of kaduna chief judge the culprit enters jail immediately. It’s cos ibraheem died now that they want to stop the place most people eat from. They knew the poor too are sending there kids to northern Cyprus and they are of the belief that the poor are almost getting to same level with them . Abike erewa that was talking ask her where her children are. Nothing is working here in Nigeria and they want to spoil it all for us. I av my wife there and three other family members ,I called them this morning and they said they did not hear about the killing s of hundred Nigerians . If that happens the children would have been calling there parents that they want to come home
We should not allow them plant fear in our.minds. ibraheem died and let them go for his autospsy
Call me.om 070******** and I will stand by this
Obasanjo was killed by his brother, that I know for a fact because the government there that is miles ahead of Nigerian government investigated it and found it out. Don’t be spread false news without verification. How many Nigerian students are killed in other countries of the world? Let’s count! Abeg if you want to go to Cyprus and study under upto 100% scholarship contact me via whatsapp 090********
I live in North Cyprus, all of us we Nigerian students here was shocked at the news over the media, when we got the news we started calling each other to know of our safety, and we were surprised nothing of such. How possible it is to have over 100 Nigerian students killed and the government of nigeria will just keep mute. Let them investigate the killings. Our government lies to us at home is not enough, they should allow us to make a life meaningful for us, we know what this government and some good Samaritans did for us during locked down, even the government insisted no landlord should threaten any students over non payment of rent till after the economy is opened, what else do we want them to do. Fine the main issues on the island has not been addressed which is no provision for foreigners to get jobs to support their education here, and we have bills to pay. I have never heard of any police or even the locals harassment. What I heard is Nigerians are the ones killing themselves when they are involves in illegal deals and hard drugs. North Cyprus is safe, nobody should create any fear anywhere.
NiDCOM, be careful with your NEWS. Make proper investigations and don’t just publish news based on the testimony of one person. We in Northern Cyprus know some Nigerian students were killed due to some reasons, but don’t make your news look like it’s the Turkish Cypriot government or their citizens that are deliberately killing Nigerians. Some Nigerians passed away due to health issues, some have been killed by there fellow Nigerians due to personal problems (money, girlfriend, drugs), some drowned in the sea and others based on various reasons. Also, don’t make your news look like killings have been going on within the last one to two months because that is a lie. Infact, some of the people you mentioned were gone 3, 5 , 6 years ago, so please be careful. Before you publish news about north cyprus, visit VOIS CYPRUS on facebook and make inquiry from them.
Dear students,
First you should know that you live in an occupied area and illegal state. You should Know that Turkish army invaded on 1974 and kill 5000 thousands Cypriots 1619 missing People. And 200 000 refugees in their own country… Im Cypriot and i live in the free part. Of Cyprus Republic. Your voice is my voice. Your right is my rights.
This is very scary. Those of us with wards already studying in Northern Cyprus how can we protect them. Concerned parent