Press release 19.12.2022 – German foreign Minister “Mrs Baerbock” complacent foreign policy
We are in Benin City today and are expecting a deportation flight from Germany tomorrow in Lagos. On the same day that Germany will be returning the stolen bronze figures to Nigeria, Germany will be hosting a chartered deportation enforcement flight to arrive in Nigeria after midday.
As in Qatar and Turkey, we can observe the double standards of German politics: In its self-image, German politics pleases itself as the good guy, bringing its historical guilt in line with human rights, only to make a mockery of people’s rights with its real policies at the same time. In 2022, we have again and again witnessed collective deportation to Nigeria on a monthly basis. Mockery for the many unfortunate people who should have been eligible for the recently decided residency right “Chance aufhenthalt”, but were quickly deported in the cause of the debate on the new amendment. Mockery for the young people in Benin City on whose shoulders the devastation of colonialism in West Africa rests. Not only were the bronze figures stolen from this region, the society has also been robbed of its social, economic and ecological basis.
“The fact that the Federal Republic of Germany is leading the deportations from Europe to Nigeria shows its disinterest in the people of this country. Nigeria is to be opened up economically for Europe, with all the negative consequences that can be traced back to centuries. But the people from the country are continually held up and traumatized in the Sahara and on the Mediterranean with many death. In Germany at the latest, the few who have made it to Europe are criminalized and deported,” says Rex Osa of Refugees4Refugees.
The destruction of this region was and is so great that the conditions are still so bad today that most Nigerians would rather flee rather than to live here. But we do not believe that the German foreign Minister “Mrs Baerbock” will take the oil that flows through the rivers and over the fields in the Niger Delta with her on her return flight. That she will close the Shell petrol stations in Germany, which have been able to make undisturbed profits since the execution of the Ogoni people. That it will release the patents that have been imposed on the medical and technological advantage that Europe secured in its colonial and post-colonial times. Or that there would be enough room in the government machine for society’s frustration with the Nigerian political class that Germany is trying to stabilize here.
The bronze figures, just like the 100 million euros in economic aid that Germany promised in October will both end up as private pleasure of the Nigerian government. With that, Germany will secures a reliable partner that will continue to prevent civil society from developing again after its colonial execution. The destruction of social conditions during the colonial period in this region was so complete that the socio-economic structures, which at least partially represented personal and economic security, could not be restored until today. People have been robbed of their faith in their own future and their faith in each other, which makes today’s Nigeria an insecure place to live in and prevents an independent civil society from developing. Ms Baerbock, you have nothing to offer this country except new dependencies on oil-hungry turbo-capitalism and neoliberal medicine for the wounds that your Germany’s economic interests have left behind for centuries.
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