Kent Ogu

full interview

Welcome. 
Oh, thank you. Thank you very much.

So let’s begin. My question is, what type of home do you live in? 
Um, I live in a house with 20 other people. It’s a house with a foundation here called [redact]

Right. Can you describe the conditions? 
They’re okay. Good for the most part. But it’s like, you share the house, obviously, with other people and lots of people, and, it’s not as easy, it’s borderline very difficult most days because, you know, obviously you don’t have the privacy. You don’t have the freedom you would wish. So, that’s how it is.

Okay. And who do you live with? 
I live, as I said, with 20 other people. Well, 19 other people, we are 20, and yeah, that’s the people I live with.

Okay, and how do you spend your time here? 
Ah.

You work? 
I go to school.

Okay. 
Mostly language classes. And that’s the ones that are provided by the foundation and the house I live in. So, I take those lessons and also have teachers that come here in the house to teach us the language and then I also have a voluntary program that I participate in as well to help people that have problems with having things to eat and they’re on the street. That’s basically it. Then I play football. Uh, yeah. So most times, I’m in training, and I was into some dance classes.

Okay. What are some of the things that give you joy or make you happy? 
Things that give me joy and make me happy are football. That’s like a huge part of my life. And music. Music and dance. These things give me a lot of joy. Like I feel, I feel like I can do anything when I’m doing this, especially football. 

Okay, how has life been since you arrived? What has been the good thing about being here? What has been the things that, the difficult things? 
Life has been…there’s been an improvement from the life back home, the way I was living and in the aspect of health, food; generally, like the quality of life. You know, just being able to sleep peacefully or walk in the streets peacefully, not looking over your shoulder. Just those things that many people here would take for granted – one of the major things that, ah, the best things –  that have happened to me since I came here.

I see. Can you describe how living here has made you feel? 
Just made me feel a sense of family, a sense of community, and like I said, we are 20 people in a house. At the same time, it has also made me feel frustrated. As in any other house, or with your relatives or your family – it’s challenging. You have disagreements. You have things that you don’t see eye to eye on some things so… And then, you have some annoying things that you have to deal with and, yeah, that’s it.

Okay. Depending on the answer to the question, how does it feel being away from the rest of your family home? Or how does the feeling of not belonging, discrimination, stigma affect you? Can you describe it?
Yeah, it’s difficult, it’s very, very difficult in that I don’t have my family here and I’ve been with them, like all my life and then all of a sudden you are out in a foreign land on your own and you feel it, you feel lonely. You feel like you don’t really belong to someone. Like when, when I was home, going back home after maybe a day’s work or after training, going back to see your mom is always great because it’s, um, it gives you that sense of, you know, belonging, like, you know, I’m going home and you are going to see the people you love. And then, when you come here, it’s a different setting altogether, and then those people are not here, and it makes it difficult.

So you felt sadness?
Yeah. Sad and lonely, and, um, yeah. That is pretty much the dominating feelings. Just this feeling of sadness. Sometimes, like emptiness, like you just feel, you know, there’s something, there is a void that, like, only those people can feel, you know? And so, that’s it.

Did you ever imagine that you could handle the situation? How have you managed to overcome, to survive or to live with it? 
Oh, I didn’t really prepare for this situation, to be honest. Yeah, because you don’t see yourself, having to be in this situation, dealing with this type of challenges, unique in their own way, and you live with people from different backgrounds, people that you virtually don’t know and you have to coexist and cohabit in peace, which is very difficult. And, because there’s a lot of clashes, clash of culture, language, and clash of opinions, different things. So, it, it’s, difficult. And if I have developed a mechanism to cope with it. Yeah, mostly, as I said before, I love music, and so this helps me, like to get away from all those different, difficult situations. And it really helps me, like, emotionally uplifts me most times after I listen to some good music or some artists; you feel much better and then you feel – you see things from another angle – and then everything gets better from there.

Okay. Do you think you developed the ability to face these challenges, or do you think you always had those skills? Strengths, mechanisms, resilience. 
I would say, I’ve always been an optimistic person. I’ve always been… ah, I’m trying to look for the right word.

Yeah, take your time. 
I’ve always been someone that is always hopeful, positive, and I’ve always believed in the brightness of a new day, in everything, even in dark situations, I always try to see the light in everything. So, that has always been how I’ve tried to live and, so, that’s how I’ve been able to deal with some of the situations. Yeah, that’s what I would say. I’ve always had that. And then, of course, it keeps on getting better and improving with each day.

Okay. Why did you leave your country? Can you describe what happened? 
Ah, it’s a long story. Lots of wild stories, but mainly it’s just to have a better life, a great life, a meaningful life and just to get away from oppression and gangs and, you know, cult groups and some political touts and politically motivated violence and things. Yeah, I’ve only seen that growing up and then, when it starts to affect you, is when you realize that as you growing up, you can’t really move as you would want to move, and you can’t really even be free in your own country, you know? You have people that have their own opinions of how or they want to define life for you, your life for you and then they want you to live by those rules that they’ve defined. So, you have things like gangs, gang violence, insecurity. You have politically motivated fights and, and political instigated violence in the neighborhoods.You know it’s random, you can’t really – you don’t even know when it’s going to happen. You don’t even know who is going to do it, and it’s like people around you are even participating in all these types of things. So it was really something that I had to think of and I had to find a way to get out of that situation, environment, because it was not healthy. First from my mental health, the mental state. It wasn’t healthy for my well-being in general. Certainly, it wasn’t healthy for my financial life. You know, it was just, living like each day as it comes, like no real hope or expectations for the future because you’re just trying to survive. That’s the thing, you’re in survival mode when you’re out there. There’s nothing like living, you’re not really living, you’re just managing and going through, you know, just… almost like hopping along through life and it’s difficult. It’s really painful, and a lot of people right now are going through the same over there. It’s really painful. Yeah, it’s something that I would like to try and look at in the future to see how to help other people to escape that situation because I know about it fully and I know how it feels, because that was my reality for a long time. [redact].

Yeah. How did it make you feel at the moment? 
You feel helpless. You feel worthless, to a degree, like just sense that, there’s so many stories people that didn’t have money and then they were thrown into the bush and then some of them are missing to date. [redact] So that feeling, it makes you feel worthless, you know, like you just asking yourself “Is this how much my life is worth that someone can actually take me out for just a few, mmm, couple of hundred dollars?”, you’re gone, you know. Or if it’s, like, politically motivated, they will force people to support, maybe, a particular group, a particular party, to vote for them. Then, even if, mostly it’s against your will, then if you decide not to, you are seen as a sellout or something or it’s just random crazy things happening. And then, those types of things really make you sit down and start to think about your future, your life. How you want to move forward and honestly, for me personally, I was not seeing my future there in my home country, because, it was just I was not seeing anything. It was just bleak. It was dark. It was just, because I’ve seen these things over and over. I’ve seen people that are older than me going through these struggles, and then I knew, I had to just get out. I just had to leave because there’s just so much chaos and so much it’s wild out there. The sad thing is, it’s a beautiful country, amazing country, amazing people. But, it has turned into a political war zone. Yeah, and the people are like collateral damage, you know for, for the greed of the politicians and these groups and gangs. So that’s, that’s basically it.

How was the trip here? Are there any particular different experiences you can tell us about?
Ah, the trip was okay. It was fine. It was a trip by plane, flew here. Okay, flew to Sweden. Then, you know, we arrived there. Ah, the difficult part was mostly maybe, like as we arrived, they wanted to know, the checks would be extensive on us than any other people. They kept checking our bags and different checkpoints. Yeah, we ended up spending a bit of time at the airport than we were supposed to because of this. Yeah, that was the difficult part about the journey. But afterwards, the rest was, it was a different experience, a different environment. You could feel some kind of, like freedom and, like you could feel, personally, I felt, alive when on that journey. I knew I had left something behind that was, like holding me back, you know, from expressing myself, from being, you know, the best expression of myself that I could be. Because it’s… you can’t be that there. You can’t be, you, it’s almost like you’re not really allowed to dream, you know. It has to be something that people have been doing. If you want to do something different or if you succeed and make money, you’re even in danger as well, because you risk being kidnapped or your family being kidnapped. So it’s just different things that are like, it’s just crazy things, you know? I remember one time there was like – okay, this is like apart from the experience of like, maybe you made it you, you know, people want to kidnap you – just to explain like some random things that just happened. There are some people on one Sunday morning just like an unknown group of gunmen went into a church and… Okay, they had guns, they had knives as well, machetes. They started slaughtering people in the church, you know, shooting and killing them basically like inhumane stuff. And then when you, when you keep on hearing such stuff, you just wondering, it’s only a matter of time. When, when will it be your turn? You know. Because it’s just random. It’s happening in different states in the north of the country, you have people and groups like Boka Haram, and you just have so many different things, you know, happening. And then in different states you just have these random killings. There’s another group they call the Headsmen. These people are supposed to be, like, into cattle farming, like rearing cattle. But, they are like one of the most dangerous people. If you out of luck, you meet them at night or in the wrong place, they can, like, there’s been reports, a lot of reports of women getting raped by these people and these people killing people as well. So it’s it’s terrible.

So you felt bad about it? 
Yeah, I felt unsafe. It’s more than bad. I felt unsafe. Felt, you know, like I said, you feel like your life is worth little to nothing. Like maybe if I do a conversion, your life maybe is worth, if someone gives somebody – 20 to 50 Euro to go maybe somewhere and just start violence, just acting violent or shooting. The person who do it, that’s the level of poverty in the country – that they can use such small amounts and then people are paying for those actions with their own lives. So it’s really scary.

Now has the situation you faced affects you today, how?
Hmm. It’s …. wow. It affects me in that I always think about the people back home. I think about my mom, especially. I love her dearly, and she means everything to me. So, me being here, I always feel like I need to find a way, like to bring her over here. Or find a way for, like, for her to be safe. You know. Plus, I have sisters and the same goes for them. You know. So me being here is like a step forward for the whole family, for them, for me, and to help everybody. Yeah. And I have friends, I have friends that are like brothers and sometimes when you talk to them on the phone, you hear these stories, different things happening, like even worse things than I experienced when I was there. You know, just hearing things, the economic situation is going down, daily. It’s just different things, like people are so battered, like beaten up emotionally, that, honestly, I don’t even know where my people find strength from. But in all of this, like, people keep going, you know. People keep waking up, going to work, trying to provide for their families, trying to just have better lives and, then, a lot of people and they’re always, all they’re working towards is just to save money or find help somewhere to just leave the country. That’s how bad it is. A lot of young people are leaving their own country just because some people have made it like a war zone and it’s difficult to live there now, you know, freely. You can’t plan for the future. You can’t plan for your studies. You can’t plan for your family. It’s even harder to invest there because you don’t know, like there’s a lot of uncertainty. It’s just a turbulent situation, country, and again, it’s a beautiful country. That’s the most painful part about it. It’s a very beautiful country, blessed with so many things, you know, and with the largest population on the whole continent. And the largest Black population in the world. But yeah, it’s a shame such things are happening there.

Did you ever, ever imagine that you could handle the situation? 
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s. Honestly, I think I’m still even handling the situation now. It’s not easy, especially, like mentally. You just have these flashes of, you know, things that happened or things happening, you know. It’s just like that feeling of uncertainty. It’s crazy. It weighs heavy on your mind and… Like, there’s another story, another time, this was in 2020. So, people were doing peaceful protests [redact]. And so many youths, like me, went on the streets; we were just like, just trying to be heard. We were not acting violent. We were not fighting anybody. We were just trying to, you know, ask the people that we voted for to be accountable for their actions. And, it started off well, but the end of it was not good [redact]..

Well, you want to stop for a moment, you know, take a break?
It’s good. You can continue.

Yeah, you sure? 
Yeah.

How could you survive or pass it? Have you created any sort of mechanism or strategies to overcome difficult times or painful memories? And where do you find strength and support? 
Mmm, I’ve always been a hopeful person and I just try to look at the future with optimism, you know, that things will be better, things will get better with time and….I find strength in knowing that I’m alive for a purpose, and I’m here to do great things. Yeah. That’s where I find strength. And also, a lot of meditation. Yeah, a lot of meditation; that helps a lot, and you know, to live in a higher power. Knowing that there’s nothing that happens here without, you know, without the permission of, you know, God. So, yeah, that’s where I find strength. Yeah.

Before the event that took you away from your home occurred. What was your dream? 
My dream was to be a professional footballer. 

You mean before, before… 
Before this? Yeah.

Before this, what was your dream? 
To play football. Professional football. Yeah.

Before leaving the country?
Yes.

Okay. When you were leaving home, what was your dream for the future? 
My dream for the future was just to be a professional footballer to improve people’s lives, and to be of help to people that need help because a lot of people are suffering. And to, just to be a reference point likelights in a very dark world. So that was, that was my dream. 

Okay. And before leaving your home country, what were your strengths? Have you maintained them? In case affirmative, how? If not, why not? 
My strengths? Ah, quite a few. I’ve always been someone that I can encourage or, someone that encourages people. I try as much as possible to do that in any way I can. Whenever I have financially and with my words, you know, whenever I can help. Yeah. And just being hopeful, I think that’s my greatest strength. Even if lead to, if this leads to hope, that leads to positive. I will take it and focus on it and leave the rest that is bad. That’s how I’ve always been. And, yeah, maintaining that strength because it keeps making me go, you know, higher in my thinking because I believe everything starts from your mind. If your mind is good, everything else will be good because you can think properly and you can strategize, you can plan and you can do things. Yeah, so that’s, that’s what I would say.

Great. What you have experienced seems real difficult. Do you feel that you have grown in some way as a result of this experience or has something positive come out of it? 
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve definitely grown a lot as a person and also in the way I see life in general, and yeah, my world view, as well, is also improved, changed in the things I see now or that I didn’t know, like what they were, say, three, four years ago. So it has really improved the way I see things, the way I see people. And I want to try to stay in the positive because there’s so many negative things that you can easily look at, you know, and maybe complain. But yeah. It’s easy. It’s easy to complain. But then, yeah, there’s so many positives. So many things I’ve grown into, I feel more responsible now, especially being here. It’s like I’m kind of, in a way, responsible for my family, you know? Their wellbeing, like them having a better life. And just for that responsibility; to be able to help them in every way and take care of them. And make their lives better. 

What are your hopes and dreams for the future? 
Hopes and dreams for the future are playing professional football at the highest level possible. And to be able to help people that are struggling. There are a lot of people out there, like drinking contaminated water, bad water. If you can drill, you know, boreholes for those people. Give them fresh water and food, food programs. That’s my dream. And basically, just make people’s lives much better and then have a big thriving property business. That’s my dream for the future. So, yeah.

We really appreciate your answering all of these questions. Is there anything you would like to ask, like, add that can help people better understand the life of refugees here? 
Something I can add.

Yeah, something that you can, that you can add that can help people better understand the lives of refugees here. 
Well, I just want to say, like, I want people to know that refugees are very intelligent people. They are strong people. They are people with strong will and determination. Because if you check and if you ask most of them, you hear different stories and how they were able to overcome different challenges. Yeah. So, that’s the thing I would like to tell people that the way they treat refugees should be with respect, because these people they’re fighters, they’re driven, they have hopes and dreams, they are passionate about what they do and they really want to be the best at what they do. And also improve the lives of their families and even the lives and the communities where they find themselves. Yeah, a lot of them are hard workers. That’s for sure. So that’s what I want people to know. Refugees are, they’re just that flavour, you know, they’re different, so they are adding flavor to an environment that is like, you know, flavorless or bland, if I can, if I can use that word. So that’s it.

Well, I thank you very much for all, for everything. Thank you very much. 
Thank you.