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Nigerians Living in Germany are not finding life easy but some say they still prefer their host country to their home country

They all hail from different parts of Nigeria and had come at different times in their lives to live in Germany; but their stories have a familiar or similar tune to them: all came in search of a better life in the European country. That, in a nutshell, tells the story of the  Nigerians Newswatch recently met and interviewed  in Germany.

From their different locations: Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Dresden, most of them had faced or encountered  some difficulties  in their quest to live and succeed abroad. And the fact that each survived to tell his story says something about the indomitable Nigerian spirit . “I came here in the 90s. I’ve lived here for 20 years,” said Bolaji Agboola, a Lagos-born Nigerian whose parents hailed from Osun State.

Agboola’s journey to Germany was made possible by his sister who paid for his flight ticket. The first attempt did not work out as the man who was expected to deliver the ticket did not do so. Rather than give up, Agboola’s sister went ahead and bought another ticket, in what was seen by the beneficiary as a means to save him from himself. “I was a political science student of University of Lagos, Unilag, at the time and was getting into trouble. My sister just felt I was in danger,”  he said. But life in Germany, as an African immigrant, he soon found out, was not rosy. “It was like a gold rush. When we came to Germany in the 90s, there were many of us. It wasn’t easy, I had a really bad experience from the beginning,” Agboola said. He was not alone. There were many other immigrants who had nursed high hopes upon landing in Germany. But their hope suddenly began to give way to despair and despondency,  with even dire consequences for some. “It was like having a room full of people and all of a sudden, slowly, slowly, everybody started departing, or were being deported or being put in jail or some people went crazy.” Crazy? “Yes, crazy,” he repeated.  “I know a lot of Nigerians that went crazy because of the challenges they faced. We suddenly found ourselves in a situation where we didn’t have parents, brothers and sisters, we didn’t have anybody that we could talk to about our problems. Most of us were strangers even to one another. We just met in this country but we tried to be friends. In between that, you could wake up the next day to find that someone was being taken away by the police. A lot of people were deported.” Agboola attributed part of the psychological trauma some people faced at the time to “home factor.” He explained that people were scared of being dubbed failures by their family members and friends back home, and that possibly affected their psyche. “I think such thinking affected many people. There were a lot of  people  that I know personally who went crazy. They were normal at the beginning but when you start getting letters to go to court, or maybe your asylum application was turned down, you start to worry about what people might think if you were deported.”

Luckily for Agboola, he was able to wriggle out of  all the troubles that came his way. “ I can tell you emphatically that, of all the Nigerians I met during that period, I’m the only survivor,” he said with a smile. Long gone are the days when he lived in fear of  being hunted and deported by the German police as the dark-complexioned man has since regularised his stay in Germany and currently works in a juice manufacturing company as a technician.

Harrison Chukwunweike Ukeh is  another Nigerian who survived the initial hardship in Germany to become a successful man. He told Newswatch in Frankfurt that life was not easy for him when he arrived the country from Nigeria in the early 90s.  “We found life very difficult because Germany is not an English speaking country and German language, for someone from Nigeria, is hard to understand,” he said. Such language barrier, on its own, posed a big challenge for Ukeh. But he  was later to overcome it and today, speaks good German.

Looking back at those years, Ukeh said that the German society has changed significantly from the one he met when he first arrived the country two decades ago. “Talking of racism, I once went somewhere and they said, look, this is not for black people; you cannot work here. That was like 12 or 13 years ago. Today, it’s not like that. There might still be racism but not in the streets anymore. Before, as a black man, when you board a train, everyone will move away from you.” He attributed the change in attitude to the fact that Germans are now more enlightened and most of their youths have chosen to break away from the past stereotype and stories they were fed about Africa and Africans which mainly cast the continent and its people in bad light. “I met  a lot of people in the past, my co-workers at the time, who said that they were told by their parents that Africans are poor and that they sleep on top of trees because they do not have money. They used to think more of black men as criminals and people from poor background. But now, when you explain things to them and show them things like Nigerian movies, they are usually amazed. And by watching movies, reading books, meeting black people and visiting Africa and generally getting exposed to new things, they are more interested in Africa, and want to know more, especially because Nigeria is a very wonderful and popular country in the world,” said Ukeh.

Ugoh Lander Obiozo, from Rivers State, Nigeria, spoke in the same vein as Ukeh. “Life in Germany is very difficult, especially for a black man,” he said. Citing an example, Obiozo said: “In Hungary or England, a lot of things could be waved aside if you want to set up a business  but here, there’s no shortcut to it.” The situation is probably worse in Dresden where Obiozo lives as he said that “there’s high tax rate and high rate of unemployment in this Eastern part of Germany.” Obiozo has spent 12 years in Germany so far but he attributes his staying power to the fact that he’s “determined to survive.”

Obiozo said he worked at the security department of Chevron in Nigeria but quit the job when it dawned on him that the Chevron management was not ready to make him a permanent staff of the company.  He then got involved “in a little bit of politics in Lagos” by working as an assistant to a politician during the military administration of  Sani Abacha. But the death of Abacha and the demolition of the  structures of the former military strongman, ended the affair between Obiozo and his political godfather, as the politician could no longer find his bearing in the new dispensation. He then decided to relocate to Germany.

Ikechukwu Okuma, from Orlu, Imo State, has lived in Germany for 15 years. He arrived Germany from Lagos, where he earned a living selling cosmetics. As a Lagos resident,  Okuma  was drawn to follow in the footsteps of some of his friends who had relocated abroad. He told Newswatch that the inflationary trend at the time posed a danger to his business and that led him to consider the option of travelling abroad. But he never anticipated what he found. His Nigerian friends he expected to pick him at the airport  failed to show up. They also failed to pick  his calls. He later reasoned that they failed to show up because “they were all married to white women and so it was not easy to leave your wife or family and go for a friend as it might create problem.” At a  point, “one of the German women warned me not to call the house again, after I phoned the house.”

But that experience did not make Okuma bitter towards German women. That probably explains why he is today married to a German woman himself. Their marriage is blessed with two kids.

Robert Idemudia is another Nigerian who found love in Germany. He’s married to a “Dresden woman” with whom he has two children. Idemudia said he left Nigeria for Germany in 1991 because of the harsh economic condition, and has not regretted the decision. “Generally, for a black man living in Germany, it is different from being in your country. But Germans are okay. We know there’s racism, but it’s also prevalent in Nigeria in the form of tribalism; it’s the issue of this one is Hausa, another would say you are Ibo or Yoruba.”

Ken Olumide Paulson, a Nigerian staff of the UPS courier service in Germany, who spoke with Newswatch in Frankfurt, said that racism is a global phenomenon, and that Nigeria is as guilty as Germany or any other country in the world where foreigners are treated as second class citizens. “In Nigeria, some Yoruba people don’t like Igbo and some Igbo don’t welcome theYoruba and the same applies everywhere. On the other hand, some don’t care where you come from. But since coming to the country, I’ve not really experienced  racism.” Germany, Paulson said, is a good and lovely country, with equally good people.