Abdul-Azeez Lekan Soneye

University of Kassel

3 - Partnerships in Knowledge Production

Prof. Dr. Alexander Gallas (Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences & University of Kassel)

Prof. Dr. Lisa Anne Carstensen (University of Kassel)

The Experience of International Students as Migrant Labour: A study on the Precarisation Process of Africans in Germany.

The internationalisation of education, student mobility, migration and skilled labour supply have been studied from different perspectives. Many of these studies have focused on knowledge reproduction, collaboration of North and South, inclusive of Africa and the quest for decolonising knowledge. A phenomenon closely linked to global development cooperation. However, little study is done on the linkage between students’ migration from Africa, capital expansion, and how these interact to create expansion of the informal and precarious labour market in Europe. The largest percentage of African students studying in Germany are skilled workers with at least a first degree before migrating to Germany for graduate programmes. This makes them migrant workers in tandem with ILO’s definition of migrant workers. 

The German government has emphasised the target to attract more students from the global south, with peculiar focus on Africa, to cover for the skilled labour shortage in Germany. Contrary to the general opinion that international students are in good jobs, they are usually found in precarious working conditions. Recent studies have shown that multinational corporations are investing and influencing universities, other internationalisation agencies and immigration authorities in the category of students to recruit and grant visa. This suggests that the idea of education internationalisation may be a new strategy for extractivism of cheap labour from Africa into the global north.

This project adopts the Labour Process Theory with focus on the logistic sector in Germany, to examine the process by which African students studying and working in Germany are dispossessed of their skills, and transformed to submit themselves to precarious working conditions. The overall aim is to understand how internationalisation of education and the collaboration between Germany and African countries in knowledge reproduction may reinforce the precarisation of work and the extractivism of cheap labour for the benefit of large corporations in Germany. The project will be significant in offering policy recommendations for international organisations, education institutions, trade unions and relevant stakeholders on reshaping immigration policies for international students and labour to become fairer. It would also be significant in that the focus addresses the SDGs goal 4 and 8 on qualitative education opportunity for all and decent jobs with economic growth.

Soneye Abdulazeez Lekan obtained his first degree in Political Science Education from Tai Solarin Federal University of Education (TASFUED), Ogun State, Nigeria. He obtained his MA in Labour Policies and Globalisation from the University of Kassel and Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin (HWR Berlin).

Since 2022, Soneye has been engaged as a fulltime lecturer at the department of political science, Sikiru Adetona College of Education, Science and Technology (SACOETEC), Ogun State, Nigeria. He has been a facilitator in the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) annual Young Workers Training in Nigeria since 2025. In 2024, Soneye was employed on a short term as a consultant and lead researcher in the Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung (RLS) funded project documenting the working conditions and rights of domestic workers in Nigeria.

Soneye is an activist and political organiser since his first participation in the January 2012 OccupyNigeria protest. He is a founding member of the largest left political movement in Nigeria, Take It Back (TIB) movement founded in 2018. He is also a founding member and serves on the education board of the biggest socialist party in Nigeria, the African Action Congress (AAC). As an undergraduate, he held different elective positions in the student movement, including the zonal coordinator of the Alliance of Nigerian Students Against Neoliberal Attacks (ANSA), Students’ Union President of TASFUED, and National Publicity Secretary of the National Association of University Students (NAUS). As a member of the Socialist Workers and Youth League (SWL), he has served as a member of the editorial committee of the Socialist Workers Bulletin, the Workers’ Rights Campaign and currently serves as the Assistant General Secretary of the organisation. Soneye is the Cordinator of the Young Workers Training Alumni Network and he co-produces the Voice of Workers Podcast project of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Nigerian Office. He is a member and volunteer in the Federation of Informal Workers Organisation of Nigeria (FIWON).

He was awarded the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung scholarship and sponsorship of his MA degree in labour policies and globalisation. In May 2026, he won the 6 months UTE AND GYÖRGY SZÉLL INTERNATIONAL PHD-SCHOLARSHIP of the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung (HBS).

• Soneye, A. L., Mustapha, H. & Abbah, B. (2025). Working conditions and rights of domestic workers in Nigeria. Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung: Dakar.
• Informal and precarious work in Nigeria: Challenges and prospects for organising between FIWON and the labour centres. (Unpublished Master’s thesis). Hochschule für Wirtschaft und RechtBerlin.
• COVID-19 Pandemic: A thread for paradigm shift in the global context- Lessons from US-China relations. (Unpublished Bachelor’s dissertation). Tai Solarin Federal University of Education.