DThe place lacks many characteristics associated with the word “village”. It is not a grown, crooked, rural idyll, but a geometrically planned settlement: red corrugated iron roofs, brown plaster, a few geometric elements on the gable walls. The long-distance road from the provincial capital leads through some fields shortly before the settlement, a herd of goats on the left, a herd of cattle on the right. The village now has 3,000 residents again, and more are expected to return.
It was burned down seven years ago by Islamist Boko Haram fighters who were spreading terror in north-eastern Nigeria. Now the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) has come to the wide village square between the small settlement houses for the official inauguration of the plant. She is invited to the house of a family, talks to the women of the village for a while and when she leaves, she passes the most important building: the local police station, which is also equipped with a watchtower.
