I have always wanted to warn Nigerian students seeking prospects in Europe or abroad generally to remove the option of TRNC from their list but l lacked the motivation, that time to sit down and pen a lengthy post discouraged me, but in lieu of the recent headlines on the news, I will say my bit and warn anyone who probably has been nursing that idea to desist from going there!
I felt the agents who processed my admission for me were not fair to me as they ought to have warned me enough but anyway, it’s a dog eat dog world. They were only interested in loning their pockets.
Though, the news going round on social media that hundreds of Nigerian students have been killed there is grossly over exaggerated, there have been some killings but Northern Cyprus still remains safer than most part of Nigeria to be candid!
The TRNC is a country which is not recognized by any country in the world aside from Turkey, they have no natural resources or industries to generate revenue from, so they built some universities all over the country and they branded the Island as A STUDENT FRIENDLY ISLAND, may God punish them for that deceit!
The only source of revenue for the Northern Cyprus government is Education, their own citizens dont attend their universities, they mostly school in the UK, Turkey or the southern part of the island which is under the EU zone, to further enhance the scheme of luring unsuspecting students to the island, the TRNC is one of the easiest countries you can travel to as a prospective student, I bet it is not one of the easiest but the easiest!
A prospective student can apply and get admission in 3 days and you dont need a Visa to go there, you only need your admission letter and your original school documents to go there, a process called OK to BOARD so most Nigerians who have been denied admission or have been denied Visa in other countries have no choice than to jump at that offer. A prospective student who applied today can be in TRNC in less than 2 weeks to show how fast it is!
All this is to encourage students to come to the island and help their economy, the TRNC is a very expensive country to survive in, it costs about 300 pounds on the average to get a decent 2 bedroom flat and the hostel fees on the average cost about 3000 euros per semester aside from school fees, let me break it down further, 3k euros in Naira is equivalent to 1.5m per semester and we have 2 major semester in an academic year which means an average of 3m on accommodation alone, The tuition fees here starts from 2500 Euros per semester on the average! Which is roughly 2.7m in Naira.
Now that’s not the worse part, the worst part is the day to day living on the island, it costs about 40 turkish lira to take a taxi to any location and that’s about 2,400 naira and 4800 in total, for a to and fro journey though there are school buses which the government claims to be free but they are not entirely free as the cost of transportation has been deducted from your school fees.
The TRNC government lures student to the island to boost sectors such as housing as accommodation is very expensive, even the locals here dont pay what foreigners pay for housing they pay lesser, students come in to boost the tourism sector, the hospitals and pharmacies benefits from it, the transportation sector benefits from it and ofcourse it creates that multiplier effect that propels their economy.
Any household item or commodity whatsoever that you desire to purchase here is over 7 times the rate in naira, let me give examples, it costs over 2500 naira to buy a pain killer like panadol which cost around 200 naira, it costs about 15k to buy a charger for your phone, electricity bills can be as high as 60000 naira in a month during the summer and winter months when the air condition and heater has to be used, yes I said 60000 naira, Gas and water bill is something else entirely, the price of everything there is Jaw dropping as the prices are inflated to leach every penny from foreigners, they believe that every student especially Nigerians are rich!
When you register as a new student here, their universities will seize your original certificates to trap you so you wont leave and if you decide to leave the school you will be asked to pay termination fees in addition to whatever debt you probably owe the school!
Is it not crazy that a friend had to drop out on financial reasons and he was asked to pay over 2800 euros with the fees he owed the school before he will get his original certificates which he submitted while registering as a fresher!
Some of the institutions here fail students deliberately so that they can keep paying this school fees and trap them in the system to keep boosting their economy.
To crown it all, there are no jobs there coupled with the harsh and expensive living conditions many students have no options than to engage in petty vices.
95 percent of the universities there, the degrees are not Recognized by several international bodies, what the agents mostly do in Nigeria is to tell Nigerians that they are going to Cyprus and they will think they are going to the Southern part of the island which is an EU zone but on getting to Cyprus they are taken to the North. In fact the temporary residence permit wont take you to any country and since the country is not recognized most countries dont have embassies there which means to relocate you probably have to get a Tourist visa from here to Turkey which is not so difficult to apply to any country of your choice.
No b all abroad b abroad, and na small the north Cyprus take fine pass Nigeria sef, the roads are not so good and the houses are not so rushed.
According to the last NANS report there are approximately 30000 Nigerian students on this island and we have Zimbabweans, Congolese and other countries from other developing nations both in the middle east and Asia here.
My advice to all prospective students, if you are nurturing the idea of coming here to work while schooling please jettison those ideas. In fact dead it!
North Cyprus is not worth it ,one bit! I have spoken and its finally out of my conscience, who get ear make e hear!
And as for the grammar police wey go wan check my post for spelling errors and punctuations, this post is to share my experience there and warn prospective students against going to that expensive
