On Jan. 9, Erdogan said Gulen’s organization previously had schools in 115 countries, and that Gambia was among six nations that had shut them. Schools in the African countries of Guinea, Somalia, Chad, Senegal, Mauritania, Niger and Gabon have been transferred to Turkish government control, he said.
The schools follow national curricula, serve children through high school and are popular with local elites because of good academic results. They deny any link to the botched military uprising in Turkey in July that led to a purge of alleged loyalists of Gulen, a U.S.-based critic of Erdogan who had expanded his international influence with a message of interfaith harmony.
The schools once had the approval of Erdogan’s government, whose former alliance with Gulen partly derived from joint opposition to the hard-line secular circles that had ruled Turkey. The partnership evolved into an increasingly acrimonious rivalry several years ago.
In Ethiopia, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said this month that schools linked to Gulen will be transferred to Turkish government control. He said he discussed the matter with Erdogan during a visit by the Turkish president.
“I told him that if there is something wrong with the establishment of the schools, then he should give us a way out how to keep the schools running,” the prime minister said. “They agreed on this and they have set up a foundation.”
In Tanzania, 11 schools in the Feza system inspired by Gulen have a total of 3,000 students, just over half of them Muslim.
Turkish diplomats have tried to “convince government officials to give these schools as a gift to Erdogan during his visit,” Feza director Ibrahim Yunus said in an email to The Associated Press. He dismissed the allegation that the schools are a security threat.
Some parents asked the Feza system to start a university, and the Tanzanian government allocated land 60 kilometers (37 miles) north of Dar es Salaam for the institution, according to Yunus.
Turkey’s crackdown on suspected supporters of Gulen has undermined the plan.
“Unfortunately, because of the purge on businesspeople in Turkey, we are having difficulty in finding donors for that project,” Yunus said.
Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey and Elias Meseret in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia contributed.