Germany

By Muhammadu Sabiu 

A shocking case of alleged homicide unfolded in Hamburg, Germany, as a 37-year-old man faced trial for the brutal murder of his 100-year-old grandmother. 

The accused, a German native born in Estonia, appeared in court on Thursday to answer the grave charges against him. 

The prosecution’s case revolves around the accused’s inability to care for his elderly grandmother, who was 100 years old and suffered from dementia.

The prosecuting lawyer emphasised this point in court, stating, “He could not cope with looking after her.” The horrifying incident took place in the early hours of March 6, when the accused reportedly launched a vicious attack on his defenceless grandmother inside her Hamburg home. 

The elderly woman, struggling to fend off her assailant while sitting in a wheelchair, endured a harrowing assault. 

According to the prosecution, the victim suffered at least 16 blows to her head and neck during the violent encounter. The brutal attack resulted in her falling to the ground, sustaining a broken shoulder, and ultimately succumbing to spinal injuries. 

The accused, in a chilling turn of events, took it upon himself to alert emergency services to the grisly act he had committed. When the police arrived at the scene, they discovered the lifeless body of the 100-year-old woman.

Remarkably, the man offered no resistance and surrendered himself to the authorities without incident. 

As the trial unfolds in the northern German city of Hamburg, the court will delve further into the circumstances surrounding this tragic incident.

The accused faces a charge of homicide, and the legal proceedings will determine his guilt or innocence in the murder of his own grandmother.

By Prof. Abdalla Uba Adamu

Frankfurt, Germany. 3rd July 2013

The German immigration officer looked at me and gave the usual clenched-mouth smile. I did the same. I am used to it. He flipped through my passport and then looked up.

“How many days are you staying THIS time.” Emphasis on THIS.

“Two days in Cologne”, I replied. “Today, tomorrow, and the day after that, I am off.”

He stamped the passport without asking for the usual – return ticket, invitation, hotel booking – all of which I had. He wished me a pleasant say and waved to the next person behind me.

I was then in Cologne to attend the valedictory retirement conference held in honour of the woman who mentored me and virtually adopted me as her son – Heike Behrend, who was retiring from the Institute of African Studies, University of Cologne, Germany, where she was the Director. She created the research category of “Media and Cultural Communication”, and I was the first African to be invited to deliver a lecture at the cluster. The Immigration Officer’s reference to the length of my stay was in response to the numerous times I had been to Germany – and never stayed beyond the time necessary for whatever it was that brought me.

The week from Tuesday, 30th May to Sunday, 4th June 2023, I returned after ten years. This time, the occasion was to attend ECAS2023: 9th European Conference on African Studies, with the theme of “African Futures.” It was hosted by the University of Cologne. “African Futures” explores the continent’s critical engagements with the past, present, and future of Africa’s global entanglements. ECAS is the largest and most visible single event under the AEGIS umbrella. AEGIS is an expression of a much wider and dynamic set of African Studies connections, collaborations, activities and opportunities within and beyond Europe. The conference, lasting four days, had over 70 panels involving hundreds of papers and speakers. All were efficiently coordinated through the various classes at the University of Cologne.

Earlier in the year, I and colleagues from Germany and US had submitted a panel, “Digital/social media and Afrophone literature”, for consideration at ECAS 9. It was accepted.  The conveners were me (BUK), Uta Reuster-Jahn, Umma Aliyu (Hamburg) and Stephanie Bosch Santana (UCLA). Before submitting our panel to ECAS, we first held an online symposium which was preceded by a call for papers. Despite sending the CfP to various universities and the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL), the response was pretty poor. The symposium was titled Social Media as New Canvas, Space and Channel for Afrophone Literatures. It was eventually held online at the University of Hamburg, Germany, on 22-23 February 2023. The participants then were from Germany (Uta Reuster-Jahn, Umma Aliyu Musa), Nigeria (Abdalla Uba Adamu, Zaynab Ango, Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino, Nura Ibrahim, Asabe Kabir Usman, Isyaku Bala Ibrahim), Tanzania (Hussein Issa Tuwa, Zamda Geuza), Ghana (Nikitta Dede Adjirakor), Stephen Ney (Canada), US (Stephanie Bosch Santana).

After the symposium, we submitted a panel for the ECAS 9th edition. Our panel was accepted, and all the participants of the online seminar were issued official letters of invitation to process their funding for the conference in Cologne in June 2023. As a panelist, I was fully funded to attend by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG). Umma and Uta were able to sponsor themselves from Hamburg. Unfortunately, only Nikita from Ghana was able to come from the others who could not get any funding. As a result, our panel, held on Wednesday, 31st May 2023, had only four speakers. It was déjà vu all over again – after almost 24 hours of flying and waiting at airports (Kano, Abuja, Doha), I was given only 20 minutes for the presentation.

My paper was “From Kano Market Literature to Kano Social Media Literature: The Reincarnation of an Afrophone Literary Genre.” The paper traces the trajectory of the genre from print media to its liberation in online media, with a specific focus on Facebook, Wattpad and APK files on Google Play. The paper uses netnographic methodology to harvest the dominance of and reaction to the newly reincarnated genre, which, far from being dead and buried, is more than ever before, alive and kicking in other spaces – beyond censorship or any form of criticism. In the process, the paper explores the freedom gained by the authors in unrestricted storylines that cross boundaries of identity, gender and alternative sexualities.  The Journal of African Literature Association (curated by Taylor and Francis Group) has agreed to publish the papers of the Symposium in 2024. We will have to ask for more contributors.

Another dividend for me was that I was approached by a representative of Lexington Books in the US for the possibility of publishing my paper as part of a book on Hausa media cultures if I have something like that. As it happened, I have almost completed such a project titled “Hausa Cinema” (to complement Jonathan Haynes’s book, “Nollywood”) which was to be published by the Ohio University Press in 2010, but things went southwards! Now Lexington Books is providing an opportunity, and I am excited about it.  

Our panel was lively, though, and I even met a fan! He was Jos Damen, Head of the Library and ICT Department of the African Studies Centre at the University of Leiden. While I was making my presentation, he took my picture with his phone and uploaded it to my Wikipedia page (itself created by another fan)! Later he told me I needed to have a picture there, and he took that responsibility. So it was kind of him!

The conference attendance was a fantastic homecoming for me because although Heike Behrend had retired back to Berlin, where she came from (and where I visited her in 2015 had a wonderful dinner when I was a guest of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin), Muhsin Ibrahim is now in the same institute. Both Muhsin and I were from Bayero University Kano. Muhsin was teaching Hausa at the Institute.

I first came to Cologne in 2004 – at the invitation of Heike Behrend when I met her in Kenya. At that time, I had an invitation to participate in an African Literatures project at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. Heike asked me to reroute my itinerary to stop at Cologne, teach a Postgraduate class and give a public lecture. I did both on Monday 15th November 2004. Since then, I have almost lost count of the times I visited Germany – Berlin, Freiburg, Hamburg, Leipzig, and the wonderful Cologne with its incredible, massive and stupendous cathedral – the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. It was in Cologne in 2004 that the foundation of my ethnographic foray into critical media studies was laid. Unlike in Nigeria, where many saw me as an ‘interloper’ (as they murmur, ‘After all, he is a Biologist, isn’t he?’), here it is not what you study but what you can contribute to any discipline. I have been to Colone four times and other cities several times – all on the same mission of promoting Hausa media studies.

ECAS 2023 started wonderfully with Muhsin meeting me at the Koln Hauptbahnhof and helping me drag my luggage through various concourses to the trains that would take us to his flat: a very lovely well-furnished, and very spacious space. Upon arriving and freshening up, a massive mountain of uncharacteristically fat masa was waiting for me. Even the masa looks like a ‘Bajamushiya’! The soup alone could feed a family for a week! It was a truly delicious welcome. Once I got rid of the hunger, he took me to my hotel, IBIS Centrum.

Breakfast in the morning at the hotel saw a meeting of Who-is-Who in African studies – both diasporic Africans, home-based Africans and European and American researchers. It was indeed a wonderful gathering. In addition, I had a chance to reconnect with one of the most promising diasporic Hausa African Studies experts – Musa Ibrahim.

Musa is based in Ghana. He travelled there through South Africa and Japan, ending up in Bayreuth, Germany, where he obtained his doctorate. We met at Leipzig in 2018, and I collected his CV with the hope of getting him employed in our Information and Media Studies department, Bayero University Kano. However, the university was not interested. Before you knew it, he was grabbed by the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he spent about three years before getting another appointment at the University of Ghana. Such rich and varied experience would have been valuable to us in Kano, but the parochialism of our university system did not factor in multidisciplinarity.

The following day saw dinner at Muhsin’s house, and this time, Umma Aliyu, originally from Bauchi, joined us. Umma now lives and teaches in Germany at the University of Hamburg (after her studies at Leipzig). Like Muhsin, she also teaches Hausa at Hamburg, where she took over from Joe McIntyre (Malam Gambo), who retired some time ago. During dinner, we brainstormed the idea of two book projects – which, for me, was one of the significant takeaways from ECAS9.

Muhsin, Abdalla and Musa at ECAS9, Cologne

The first book project would be tentatively titled “Hausa Studies in European Diaspora: Experiences and Perspectives.” This will be a collection of chapters written by Hausawa living and working permanently in various European universities, either teaching Hausa or other disciplines.  The objective is to demonstrate how internationalised Hausa scholarship is. We started with about five in Germany alone.

The second book project would be a post-Boko Haram narrative. So far, the Boko Haram literature has focused on the human disaster of the insurgency – virtually all books written were from the governance, security and disaster perspectives. Yet, much success has been and is being recorded in the war against terror in the form of surrenders, deradicalisation and reintegration. Yet, no one is looking at this. Using ethnographic field data, the book project will provide another side of the war on terror in Nigeria. We were excited and promised to work on various draft proposals before embarking on the works, which we hope will be completed by 2025.

The Conference’s overwhelming focus on the multidisciplinarity of African Studies was an eye-opener—no room or time for a narrow perspective on scholarship. No one cares about what your degrees are in – what matters is what you are bringing to the table NOW and how it impacts the knowledge economy of African societies and contribute to the decolonisation narrative.

For me, Cologne is a Return to Forever – the beginning of an endless loop of research and investigation.

My deepest thanks to Muhsin for being such an excellent, graceful host.

By Muhammadu Sabiu 

Thomas Tuchel, a former manager of Chelsea and PSG, is about to be named the new Bayern Munich head coach.

Football transfer guru Fabrizio Romano made this known on Thursday night.

He reports that a complete deal is in place and that Tuchel has already accepted the position.

Romano wrote in a tweet: “Exclusive news confirmed: Thomas Tuchel becomes new FC Bayern head coach, full agreement in place. He has already accepted the job.

“Contract agreed, documents are being prepared tonight.”

By Abi Carter

A 75-year-old man from the town of Bad Tölz in Bavaria has successfully sued his neighbour for causing a bit of a stink by lighting his barbecue with unusual irregularity. As RTL reports, the two men live in the same apartment building in the small town, and the one in the upstairs flat began to get frustrated with his neighbour, who apparently took to grilling food on an electric barbecue on his terrace almost every single day. 

The smoke and rising smell became “unbearable” for the upstairs pensioner, who was named by RTL as Heinz J. Together with his wife, he reported his neighbour to the local authorities, and the case ended up in court. 

While the first court threw out the complaint, the plaintiffs appealed and a second district court in Munich – after hearing testimony from around a dozen witnesses about the smell and smoke caused by the grill – eventually sided with the couple. 

The court has ruled that the downstairs neighbour is only allowed to light up his barbecue four times per month and added that he is not allowed to grill two days in a row on the weekend. If he does not comply, he risks being slapped with a 250.000-euro fine. 

Source: iamexpat

By Ibrahim Uba Yusuf

Since I arrived in Germany to complete the last lap of my PhD studies, I intended to start a travelogue on cultural shock. Unfortunately, my quest suffered a setback for two reasons. Firstly, I have a tight working schedule for writing my thesis on the Culture Industry (Hausa home videos) and their contribution to peacebuilding in northern Nigeria. Therefore, dealing with various raw data, literature, doctoral colloquium, and conferences was overwhelming. Secondly and sadly, I lost my stepmother Hajja Aishatu (may Allah have mercy on her soul), who has cared for us, including our aged father, since my mother died in 2002. Her death threw me into a state of confusion and thus compelled me to suspend it.

Now to the issue: the journey to Kassel. It was Eid-el Adha globally. Since it is not the first time I am experiencing Sallah outside Nigeria, I envisaged it would be dry. So, after observing the two voluntary Eid Prayers at about 6:10 am (German time), I proceeded to Hauptbahnhof (the central train station). The journey is about an hour on the ICE train (the fastest train in Germany) and about three hours on regional trains (which are slow but relatively cheaper) from Hildesheim. The journey to Kassel marks the end of a week-long UNESCO Symposium on Artistic Interventions in educational and social contexts organised by the UNESCO Chair, Professor Julius, who doubles as my German Supervisor.  

Documenta is one of the largest art exhibitions in Germany, which started in Kassel in 1955 with the sole aim of displaying a variety of contemporary artworks such as sculpture, film, photography and painting, among others. Held every five years, this is the fifteenth edition of the International engagement for arts. During the walk to various exhibition stands, I became interested in the open cinema in Karlswiese. This is due to my bias in broadcasting and film studies. The open cinema, a work by The Nest Collective, is tagged ‘Return to Sender—Delivery Details 2022’. It was locally constructed from dystopian waste to mimic the Global North. The dystopian waste was carefully packaged to serve as acoustic panels for the cinema walls to control external noise and echo.

In all honesty, this is my first time seeing such an amazing innovation. Scraps of electronic devices imported to the Global South were packaged and displayed for exhibition. The message embedded in this tag, ‘Return to Sender’, of course, suggests the frustration by the Global North and the radical position taken to mitigate not only importation but waste management. This dystopian waste introduces a new alternative to the existing acoustic panels in our television and radio studios, which is economical and easy to construct. In contrast to other acoustic panels, the installations offer a better aesthetic and sound control. I strongly recommend this innovation to our local cinemas (viewing centres), public and private broadcast stations, and Departments of Mass Communication and Performing Arts. I am not unmindful of the digitisation drive. While we continue the digitisation plan, I believe this can serve as an alternative that may be attuned to the sustainability discourse.

Unfortunately, Nigeria is among the countries with poor waste management. The Environment Performance Index (EPI) 2022 ranked Nigeria 168 out of 180 countries. Also, a United Nations Industrial Development Organization report shows that Nigeria produces 32 million tonnes of waste annually. With this record, Nigeria stands a chance of changing the negative discourse on environmental health, hygiene and sustainability.

Nigerians must change their nonchalant attitude toward indiscriminate waste disposal. As I write this article, one of my greatest challenges living in Germany is separating the waste into the appropriate trash cans. In Germany, paper, plastic and organic bio-waste are separated. Waste separation is comprehensive and taken seriously by both Germans and the government.

 While there is no Recycling Plant in the country, all those Baban Bola (scavengers) can be utilised and strengthened to ensure a clean environment. The services rendered by those people deserve special recognition. We must begin this campaign from our homes, schools, worship places, media and markets. Nigeria deserves to be clean.

Ibrahim Uba Yusuf wrote from Germany and can be reached at itsibrahimsite@gmail.com.

By Aminu Mohammed

I nurtured my desire to study abroad during my undergraduate days at the Department of Political Science and International Studies, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. It was the era when ABU was the hotbed of Marxism and radical thinking in the North, led by the late Marxist historian Dr Bala Usman and others like Dr Bako, Prof. Sadiq and Prof. Ayo Dunmoye. I was fascinated by the writings of Karl Marx and Max Weber, which prompted my desire to study in Germany.

Germany is the wealthiest country in Europe and a global leader in education and research. It is the land of scientists like Albert Einstein, Max Plank and philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Goethe, among others. The education in Germany is top-notch, especially in medical sciences, natural science and engineering. Studying in Germany is also cheaper and more cost-effective compared to other countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Many of you may wonder why I choose to write on this topic, considering the high cost of studying abroad. Many of you may still think that only the elite can afford to send their children to foreign universities and others from a humble background are not capable of doing so, probably due to their circumstances.

I want to tell you today that you should perish such thoughts that have limited our people, especially in the northern part of the country, making them doubt their abilities. I want to tell you that there are no limits to where you can go and what you can achieve if you believe in your dreams and work towards them. We live in an era of information technology where you can use your smartphone to search for information that will aid you in improving your life and career. There are many Nigerian students from the Southern part of the country; most do not have wealthy parents and are thriving in this environment.

Studying in German universities is tuition-free for both local and international students. There are two options: you can either study through scholarship or self-sponsorship by taking care of your living expenses on your own through a system called blocked account. The first option is highly competitive and more tedious than the second one. Therefore, I suggest that people without solid financial capacity focus on the first option by applying for a scholarship. You can check the universities’ websites offering your courses and see the requirements for obtaining the scholarship.

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) currently offers scholarships to students from developing countries for the 2023 academic session. The scholarship covers everything, including a monthly stipend of 861 euros for master’s students and 1200 euros for doctorate students. So, you should apply as soon as possible before the deadline. It would help if you had an outstanding grade in your first degree, a minimum of two years of work experience, a good motivation letter, and volunteering experience, among others, to be accepted for the scholarship programme.

The second option, through a blocked account, requires a lot of money, which means that you are on self- sponsorship, hence will cater for your living expenses which include payment for accommodation, health insurance and other costs in Germany. This option is for those who can afford the blocked account stipulated by the German authorities, which is currently 10,332 euros approximately (N6.7 million). You must deposit this money in a German bank after getting admission before securing a study visa. Most students who arrived in Germany for studies used Fintiba bank, a financial institution based in Frankfurt, Germany.

Once you get admission, you can check the website of the German embassy in Abuja or Lagos, look for the requirements for the study visa, and then apply for a visa appointment. I will advise that after getting admission, you check the official website of the German embassy in Nigeria or visit the embassy in Abuja or Lagos to get information on how to deposit the money in Fintiba bank. Don’t give your money to anybody.

You can go to any Nigerian bank to do the international transfer to Fintiba bank once you get the details on how to go about it from the German embassy. The money belongs to you and is for your living expenses here. Once you arrive in Germany and go through a system referred to as legitimization at the bank, Fintiba bank will then transfer 848 Euro monthly to your account for 12 months. The money will not be transferred in bulk to your account but bit by bit.

.Of course, you can work here and earn money to support your living expenses. Students are entitled to 20 hours per week and can work more than 20 hours during holidays, especially when the university is on break. Most international students work here and earn good money. An hourly wage depends on cities, but it is mainly between 10.45 to 16 Euro per hour (N6, 500 to N10, 000) depending on the city and company you work for. Wages in bigger cities like Munich, Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Dusseldorf are higher than in smaller cities like Kiel, Flensburg, Cottbus, Magdeburg, etc.

Public universities do not charge tuition fees in Germany. Depending on the University, you only pay a semester fee (alias social fee) ranging from 200 euros to 380 euros per semester. For instance, students in my university pay 264 Euros per semester. This covers dues for the student union and transportation. In other words, students do not pay whenever they board a bus or train, as the semester ticket covers the fare for buses and trains within the city of Kiel and up to Hamburg. So, our semester ticket covers movement throughout the state of Schleswig Holstein and Hamburg.

Most Nigerian and international students I have met here are on self-sponsorship. Theystudy and also work to take care of their living expenses. There is always a part-time job available for students, especially in big and smaller cities, and you can take advantage of that to earn money for your upkeep. Some students focus on studies only during the semester and only work during holidays, while some attend lectures on weekdays and only work part-time during the weekend. The choice is yours.

I must emphasize that studying in Germany is tough, and you must put much effort to succeed. People fail here quickly, especially students who focus on work without paying much attention to their studies. But the main thing is to strike a balance between your studies and part-time work, if you want to achieve your goals. Of course, many students have been able to secure jobs after their studies here. A lot of Nigerians that I know here work after completing their studies.

Moreover, for those apprehensive about their religion, there is a large population of Muslims in Germany, mainly from Turkey, Syria, and Egypt, among others. There are mosques everywhere. At least we have six mosques in my city, with even a mosque mainly for Africans to perform their prayer.

I still reiterate that you can do everything independently with your computer or laptop. You do not need the help of anybody or an agent to assist you in applying for admission, scholarship or the visa process. Don’t fall for any scammer. You can do this from beginning to end on your own until you find yourself in Germany. You don’t need to know anybody to be able to secure admission, scholarship or visa to Germany. I arrived in Germany in 2018 without knowing anybody or even a friend. My communication was with the University strictly. If I can do it, you too can do it. So, believe in your abilities and go after your goals. I wish you all the best in your endeavour.

Aminu Mohammed is at the School of Sustainability, Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel, Schleswig Holstein, Germany. He can be reached at gravity23n@gmail.com or 219013@mail.uni-kiel.de.

By Aminu Mohammed

This article was inspired by a post that I read on the Facebook page of Dr Muhsin Ibrahim, where he cautioned our youth against embarking on a perilous journey that may lead to their untimely death. However, while going through the comments, I was actually shocked by a statement made by someone who insisted on travelling to Europe through the Sahara Desert, despite warnings by the writer.

Of course, I know that life is tough in Nigeria, and many youths are jobless and hopeless. The high level of insecurity is worrisome in the North, as people are being hacked down to death daily without any concrete intervention from the security agencies. The deprivation is glaring on the streets all over the North, and people are looking for a way out. However, I will always advise people to travel legally anywhere or otherwise stay at home if they do not have the financial capacity to do so.

During my stint as a journalist in Sokoto a few years ago, I have written many articles about human trafficking and illegal migration. Unfortunately, this is a big business for many people in villages around the Illela local government area of Sokoto. Illela is a border town between Sokoto and Qoni in the Niger Republic. People are trafficked through these villages with the connivance of some youth in the villages. These nefarious people in the villages assist these illegal migrants by transporting them with motorcycles to the Niger Republic in order to evade immigration officers at the Illela border, who may likely prevent them from entering the Niger Republic en route to Libya and finally to Italy and other European countries.

Let me make it clear that life is not a bed of roses here, and the streets of Europe are not paved with gold. People don’t pick money on the streets. You have to work very hard to earn money. Although the government makes efforts to ensure a good life for the citizens, there are homeless people and beggars in Germany, the wealthiest European country. It is not a paradise as many of you may think or imagine in your dreams.

Life in Europe is akin to slavery for people without legal documents. First, life is tough here without legal documents. You cannot get accommodation, open a bank account, work, or visit the hospital without a resident permit. My first time at a clinic to see the doctor in my city, I was asked to present my residence permit and health insurance card; otherwise, I won’t be able to receive treatment. Thus, I presented my documents, which they quickly confirmed before treating me.

Many young men are being lured by the success stories of those who travelled illegally to Europe through the Sahara Desert in the past and believed they too could achieve success if they endure tribulation and go through pains. Although not all those who follow the pathway of illegal migration end up in agony, most live as enslaved people here.

Of course, I know and have met some of them who came to Europe through the Sahara Desert and Libya and are doing well here. For example, I know a Hausa guy from Kano State who lives in my city with his family and owns a clothing shop. He told me gory tales about his movement from Sokoto to Agadez in the Niger Republic and the perilous journey through the Sahara Desert to Libya, which lasted eight days. He spent about one year in Libya doing menial jobs before he summoned the courage to cross the Mediterranean with a boat carrying many people to the island of Lampedusa, Italy, 11 years ago.

According to this Kano guy, they took the boat early in the morning from Libya and were rescued at noon by coast guards who later ferried them in their boats to Lampedusa. He subsequently left Italy for Germany eight years ago and is now a legal resident here. He speaks fluent German and carries out his business diligently.

A few of them in my city came through that perilous route and are now established in Germany, doing meaningful jobs while contributing to the country’s economy. But their trajectory may not be the same as yours as everybody has his own destiny and luck. So many people have died in the Sahara Desert even before reaching Libya, while some have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, yet our youth are still not deterred despite such deaths.

The fact of the matter is that many people who came through the illegal route are wallowing in misery and deprivation. Most of them are trapped in refugee camps scattered in most cities across Germany. I have been to the refugee camp in my city twice and witnessed how these people live. It is a kind of glorified prison, though they can still go out and even work illegally without the knowledge of the authorities. They do “black jobs”, which are very low-paid jobs that do not require documents and are usually paid directly after their labour but not through the banks.

I met a Ghanaian last year whose name is Idrissa. He left the refugee camp in Munich, the southern part of Germany and is now hiding in my city doing menial jobs. According to him, he feels terrified whenever he sees the police and usually gets scared of commuting by public bus or train for fear of being arrested. Unfortunately, this is the type of life those with illegal documents live here. In fact, at the peak of the Corona pandemic last year, this Ghanaian could not get vaccinated because no hospital would vaccinate him due to a lack of legal documents.

Some of these illegal immigrants, desperate to get legal documents for them to be able to work, get entangled with old German women that are old enough to be their grandparents under the guise of marriage and are treated as slaves. Of course, the German women are aware that they want them only because of their residence permit and make sure they go through excruciating pains.

I decided to write this article in order to alert our youths on the dangers of travelling to Europe through the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea. If your dream is to travel to Europe, then try to go through the legal way. You can go either through the study route, a scholarship or a job based on your skills. I know that many people get jobs with the skills they acquired in Nigeria, such as doctors, nurses, engineers, and those in data science and information technology, among others. Travelling legally is the only way to move freely without humiliation abroad due to a lack of legal documents. May Allah make things easy for all of us, amin.

Aminu Mohammed is at the School of Sustainability, Chrtistan Albrechts Universität zu Kiel, Schleswig Holstein, Germany. He can be reached via gravity23n@gmail.com or 219013@mail.uni-Kiel.de.

• News Desk

A family of ducks caused a crash of three cars on the A7 autobahn near the city of Heidenheim an der Brenz, Baden Württemberg.

A man driving an Opel stopped his car when he noticed the ducks crossing the road. A Skoda driver did the same. However, a Volkswagen driver approached from behind and crashed onto the Opel.

Passengers were hospitalised and property damage of €70,000 is estimated.

Ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s purse was stolen while she was shopping in a supermarket in Berlin on 24 Feb.

According to reports, the wallet contained an ID card, EC card, driver’s license and cash.

Berlin police said that the theft took place in a delicatessen supermarket in Charlottenburg’s Morsestrasse.

Merkel is said to have filed a criminal complaint with a police section on Friedrichstrasse.

© Berliner Zeitung

By Salisu Uba Kofar-Wambai  

Functional education is the key to solving most of the joblessness and unemployment predicament Nigerians face today. Therefore, the philosophy of education matters a lot. Moreover, the kind of philosophy under which a particular curriculum operates determines the quality of graduates a particular system of education breeds.  

The idealism philosophy, which Nigeria’s education system subscribes to, contributes grossly to the condition of our graduates. They frequently end up chasing shadows, seeking jobs when in reality, there’s none. This is because the idealism philosophy emphasizes and dwells so much on book knowledge. The students are made to jampack and cram all the knowledge and ideas in their heads, but practising the knowledge is ultimately zero.

In other words, the idealism philosophy thrives in theoretical aspects. And this British model has since been abandoned by many countries of the world, as it has no successful ends and doesn’t suit 21st-century challenges.  

However, more innovative countries like China, Germany, and Japan that adopt a pragmatic philosophy of education in their curriculum are getting it right regarding employment issues. Most of their graduates are fully equipped with the specific skills required to handle jobs effectively and efficiently. Moreover, even before graduation, their students are already into temporary employment. 

The functional education practised in such countries has made their graduates vibrant job-providers instead of perpetual job-seekers we see here in Nigeria.  

It is a mammoth challenge for our education policy formulators to do the needful. They should help us migrate from idealism to pragmatism as a system. Students will then have practical skills or functional education that will enable them to establish their businesses based on their acquired skills, not just memorizing books and blowing grammar all over.

When a mechanical engineering professor could not repair a simple technical fault on his car until he refers it to a local technician, you know there’s a massive challenge with such a system of education.

I think these entrepreneurial studies and industrial training introduced by our institutions of learning are equally astute and sagacious towards achieving the desired goal. But they’re not close to where we’re aiming at. So, we must change the philosophy in its entirety first to have enough roadmap on the ground.   

The sooner we migrate, the better for us.

Salisu Kofar-Wambai wrote from Kano. He can be reached via salisunews@gmail.com.