Oakdale Man Came From Africa for Opportunity, Broader Experience

Oluwagbenga Ogungbe, who moved with his family to Oakdale in November of 2009, is one of a living in Oakdale. He came to Minnesota from Nigeria with his wife and child in 2007. A physician in his home country, Ogungbe is now pursuing his master’s degree at the University of Minnesota so he can work in environmental health and safety in the energy sector. We asked him why he chose to come to the United States, and what his experience has been like.

Oakdale Patch: What made you decide to come to the U.S.?

Oluwagbenga Ogungbe: I decided to come because traveling is a good experience, and not only that, but it’s good for the kids in particular to have an experience of how things are done in other parts of the world. That also is an experience that I was looking for. The opportunity came in '06 and I decided to grab it for myself, my wife and our first kid. Now we have two more kids.

Oakdale Patch: Why did you move to Oakdale?

Ogungbe: I needed an environment where you can raise kids, that is one. Secondly, where you won’t be too afraid of thieves and robbers coming to your house. The environment is not too noisy, not too crowded. The crime rate is low. And where you have neighbors who will be supportive—those who are working and are progressing.

Oakdale Patch: Are you able to practice as a physician here?

Ogungbe: I still have to do some exams, which is a work in progress. I’ve just completed my master’s program in public health with a major in environmental and occupational health that has a focus in risk analysis and assessment, environmental hazards, toxicology and infectious diseases. The theme of my thesis is actually on injury prevention. Besides that, I’m equally thinking of moving to (an environmental health position in) the energy sector.

Oakdale Patch: You must be really committed to education because you did all the medical training in Nigeria, and now you’re getting your master's. Did that faze you at all, to have to go through more schooling after all that you’ve already been through?

Ogungbe: It would be nice, although because of the diversity we have in the world it might not be possible, but it would be nice to have a training that would be centralized such that as long as you have that training in a particular field, you don’t really have to repeat the same training elsewhere. I think in some industries they have such trainings. It would be nice to actually have something like that. Even though it may be very stressful (to have to do additional training to practice in another country) I also think it makes some sense to require that people should repeat the trainings they have had elsewhere, because when you talk about human health, there are so many diversities to it. For instance in the U.S. killer diseases are not the same things we have in Africa. Here you’d be talking about cardiovascular diseases and cancers whereas in Africa you’d be talking more about infectious diseases.

Oakdale Patch: Was it hard when you first got here to get in school, get a job and get incorporated into society?

Ogungbe: It was hard in a way, because if you want to get a job in any setting, they want to look at your previous experiences and whom you worked with before. Where you have a very tough job market, and those people have what you don’t have, it can be a challenge. The other thing is the language. You talk, people at times will say they can’t hear what you’re saying, they can’t understand what you’re saying. A lot of people aren’t patient enough to even listen to what somebody has to say. Being from a colony of the British government, what we speak over there in Nigeria is a kind of English that is British in origin, so quite  a few things are a little bit different from the way they are here. The other thing is that you have a really tough job market. That also made it tough getting a job. 

Oakdale Patch: Where do you work?

Ogungbe: I work at Fairview Hospital right now. I work with patients who are on continuous EKG (electrocardiogram). I also work at Park Nicollet Research Institute as a volunteer research assistant.

Oakdale Patch: Do you feel there are any misconceptions that people have about immigrants in the community?

Ogungbe: One of the things that really shocked me, and I’ll try not to generalize, some of the things I noticed about some people here is that they basically base what they know about a certain sort of people on what they hear on the news, and I think more actually, developing countries. One of the reasons that is so is because all of these news outlets, print media, electronic media, cable networks or whatever, all what they are really looking for are things that would earn them more viewership. If you look at it, you have to look at it really critically. Bad news sells more than good news. It tends to be that more often than not you had more reports of bad events than good events, so I think gradually people tend to have these things ingrained in them. For instance, I had a friend who went to Best Buy and wanted to buy an iPad. He asked if it was possible to unlock it because we don’t have Verizon and AT&T in Africa. The sales person at Best Buy was asking, "Do they have computers in Africa?" For somebody who works in Best Buy, I wasn’t expecting that kind of question. We’re, that is Nigeria is, the 10th in the whole world among countries that use the Internet. So, people's impressions and opinions of others, more often than not, are based on what they see in the news and not what are able to find out, research into or read on their own.

Oakdale Patch: Do you hope to become a U.S. citizen?

Ogungbe: Yes.

Oakdale Patch: Do you think you’ll ever move back to Nigeria?

Ogungbe: Maybe not fully, probably to work toward improving some things there based on the things that we see here, things that we think are not working so well.

Oakdale Patch: So you’d stay here but continue to help people back there?

Ogungbe: Yes.

Oakdale Patch: What do you think made you so willing to put in all the hard work that it took to move here, enroll in more schooling and fit into a whole new society?  

Ogungbe: That is a very good question. The very first thing is actually for the kids. For you to appreciate what I’m saying, there’s a cousin of mine who has a kid has just been given admission to the university to study civil engineering, but he might lose that admission because there’s no money. Unlike here, where you have student loans that students can access, you have scholarships and grants, over there you’re on your own, basically. It’s quite common for people to stay at home for three to four years to secure admission to universities. My cousins who are here in the US, as soon as they’re in 12th grade and they’re done with their ACT and stuff, they already have admission to three or four universities, so it’s a question of choice. These are things that are not readily available over there. The other thing is also, we are in a world today, the introduction of computers has made the whole world to be like a global village, so it’s not enough for one to live in his corner anymore. You really have to get out and see what your colleagues are doing elsewhere and it’s much easier when you’re in the epicenter of the whole thing. If you look at most modern inventions in the world today, most of them started in the U.S. The sacrifice I believe will pay off in the end. It’s just a matter of time to pay off. I think it’s worth the while.