TheCable

Hassan Danjuma Adamu, a Nigerian from Yobe state, says he may be battling with a psychological problem after spending three months in a Turkish maximum security prison.

Adamu, who studied computer education and instructional technologies at Bahcesehir University in Turkey, told TheCable in an interview on Monday that he now suffers from anxiety.

He explained that he would suddenly wake up at night with a shock, and that he would be too terrified to go back to bed.

Adamu revealed that he had graduated, and that he was waiting to get his certificate when he was arrested alongside Mohammed Alhaji Abdullahi, another Nigerian student, who shared a hostel with him.

He said was he arrested on July 28, just a few weeks after the coup, which resulted in a crackdown on opposition elements with ties to Fetullah Gulen, the US-based cleric accused of sponsoring it.

Adamu said the Turkish police found nothing on him, but they still held him for no reason.

“I asked them why they were holding us – Mohammed and I, but they refused to give us an answer. We were held in the police cell for all whole day without food. We spent the whole night awake. The next morning they took us to court without an explanation. And from the court, they took us to Silivri maximum security prison in handcuffs,” Adamu said.

Abdullahi, Adamu’s hostelmate

“The guards at the prison told the police to deport us because foreign prisoners were not to be there, but they refused saying our offence was grievous. They asked us to do frog jump, and they would hit us in the back in the process.

“I was really scared because I didn’t know the type of people I would meet there. It was when we got to prison that the guys there told us we were being incarcerated for being members of an armed group. It was shocking because I knew nothing. We were in that cell for 14 days, after which they moved us to another one where soldiers who were accused of plotting the coup were. The prison stank, there was no ventilation. I found it hard to sleep.

“Within three months we were allowed to speak with our family only once. I think I may have a mental problem because I wake up with a shock every night now, and I cannot go back to bed because I am too terrified.”

Mohammed, who also spoke to TheCable, said they left Turkey with nothing. He said their phones and laptop computers were seized, and that they were not returned to them.

He also corroborated Adamu’s story.

The two students returned to Nigeria last Friday.

The Turkish government began a crackdown on Nigerian students in the country after the Buhari government refused to accede to its request of shutting down schools linked to Gulen.

Last weekend, Hakan Cakil, Turkish ambassador to Nigeria, said reports of Nigerians arrested in his country were exaggerated, insisting that Nigerian students were safe.