About 12,000 Nigerians are set to be deported back home from Germany,The country said Nigeria is not a war country. It offers to provide programme for those willing to return
Germany is set to deport more than 12,000 Nigerians from the country in 2018 according to the country’s global head of programme, migration and development.
This is coming a few days after the country is trying to deal with the deportation of 41 Nigerians from the UK.
The Nation reports that Dr. Ralf Sanftenberg said Nigerians will be denied asylum status in Germany.
He made this revelation when he visited Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa who is the special assistant to the president on foreign affairs and diaspora.
” We have over 37,000 Nigerians in Germany and more than 12,000 of them are asylum seekers.
“There is a little chance for their applications to be moved and they may be forced to come back to Nigeria next year.”
Sanftenberg is the leader of delegation from the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development who were on a site assessment mission for Nigerians who are voluntarily returning to the country.
He said since Nigeria was not among the war countries, 99 per cent of them will be denied asylum.
He explained that Germany would organise a support programme for those who are willing to voluntarily return to Nigeria.
One of the deportees from UK, a 37-year-old, Yoruba man said he left Nigeria about 17 years ago and had lost touch with home.
According to him, he put resources together to travel to the UK but could not raise the money to process stay papers.
He then began to engage in illegal activities until he was caught. In a similar vein, an Igbo eportee, said his parents were Lagos-based before he left for greener pastures, said he might not be able to trace the parents because he learnt they had relocated back home.
An aged woman among the deported said she left Nigeria some decades back, and she had lost touch with her relatives, including her children.
According to investigation, many of the deportees had used fake names in their documentation as they were ashamed to reveal their identities.
Those who could locate their Nigerian addresses were give assistance to return home while those who could not were taken to rehabilitation centers.
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