The Managing Director of Nigerian Turkish International Colleges, Orhan Kertim, has urged the Nigerian government to disregard the request by Turkey’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Hakan Cakil, to close down the schools. This is contained in a statement he gave to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Abuja on Friday. He said the call contained misleading information and would not have dignified it with a response.
According to Kertim, the schools have been operating in Nigeria since 1998 and as law-abiding schools they owe Nigerians a duty to expose the ulterior motives of the ambassador. “The NTIC is not a Turkish government- run institution, but a privately funded institution by a group of Turkish investors. “As a responsible organization operating in Nigeria since 1998, we are conversant with the laws of the land’’, he added Kertim, however, said the call by Cakil “is not only baseless, but also unfounded and of poor taste.
’’ The government of Turkey through Cakil had on Thursday alerted the Nigerian government on the existence of the schools “owned by suspected terrorists.’’ The ambassador called on Nigeria to shut down the schools just as the Turkish government did in Turkey. Kertim, therefore, urged the public to ignore and disregard the statement by the Turkish ambassador. “ Our schools are fully functional and will continue to be’’, he stressed.
NAN
