TheCable

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.”