Mikel Obi has commented about the entitlement mentality demonstrated by African family members when a member of the family makes money.
During a conversation with former footballer Rio Ferdinand, Obi said that family members can get so greedy that they threaten to go to the public to smear your reputation if you do not continue to provide financial help.
Using his own experience as an example, he said, “You get threatened by your own blood. Your own brothers and sisters.”
He continued: “When you come from Africa, when you make money, it’s not your money. You have all these relatives, cousins, whatever you call it.
“And your sisters, they go off and they get married to some guy who just wants to get married into John Obi Mikel’s family because then ‘my life is sorted’. And then you start looking after this guy.
Before you know it… they keep having so many kids and so many kids. And you look at it, OK,
‘You’re having this much kids, who’s going to look after them?’ It’s you. For them you owe them that.
“So sometimes you have to be strong and say, you know what guys, ‘enough is enough. I don’t care’.
“They give you this thing whereby, ‘if you don’t do it, were going to go to the press’.”
His listeners were shocked and asked, “What? Did you have that conversation?”
Mikel replied, “Yeah, yeah.”
