By Our Reporter
The Nigerian government on Tuesday bemoaned the killing of its citizens studying in Nothern Cyprus.
Chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) Abike Dabiri-Erewa made the disclosure.
According to Dabiri-Erewa it was too risky to send children to the schools in Northern Cyprus as hundreds of Nigerian students had been killed without investigations.
Dabiri-Erewa condemned the killings in Cyprus when she received a delegation led by Justice Amina Bello, mother of a Nigerian student, Ibrahim Khaleel, who was killed recently in the country.
She stressed that the death of Khaleel, a third-year engineering student, is one of the continued killing of Nigerian students in Northern Cyprus.
Dabiri-Erewa said the case had already been transferred to the International Police (INTERPOL) through the office of the Attorney General of the Federation.
The NiDCOM warned Nigerian parents against sending their children to universities in Northern Cyprus, a country she said is not recognised by the United Nations.
“No Nigerian parent should send their children to any university in Northern Cyprus – there is a collaboration which we do not understand that makes them kill blacks, particularly our Nigerian students,” Dabiri-Erewa said.
“Yes, our universities have challenges. There are strikes and you don’t (always) know when you are going to finish but there are some of these universities that you will regret you even went to, including some in Africa.
“It is better to go to a private university here than to go to some of these places that we go to in the name of – our children are in Europe.”
The NIDCOM boss read out 15 names of Nigerians from a list of more than 100 who were killed in Northern Cyprus. She said it is, however, difficult to employ international diplomacy in the investigation because the country is only recognised by Turkey.
She assured the mother of the deceased student that the commission would work with her to demand justice, not only for her son but also for other Nigerians who have been killed while studying in Northern Cyprus.
“We are going to list all these names of Nigerians that have been killed and we demand justice. There has been no prosecution and no compensation.
The NIDCOM chairman said the government will work with the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) for a possible blacklist of certificates from the country.
“We have written the NUC,” Dabiri-Erewa said. “The key thing is to blacklist Northern Cyprus and to stop our children from going to that country to study.
“We will be working with the NUC to list all the universities in Northern Cyprus and blacklist them. We cannot be letting them kill our children.”
