17th November, 2023
A former Nigerian professional footballer, Mikel John Obi, has caused a huge stir over his complain about how it’s common in Africa for relatives to be entitled to a person’s money.
According to Mikel, many family members feel your money belongs to them because they think you owe them when you become successful.
The sportsman disclosed this during a recent chat with Rio Ferdinand.
The former Super Eagles captain said when an African person makes money, many relatives and cousins start to make demands, and sisters even marry men who believe they are sorted for being a part of Mikel John Obi’s family.
The football player noted that these people go on to have so many kids and expect him to take care of them and that sometimes he has to be strong and put his foot down to say enough is enough.
The football player further explains that it was prevalent in Africa.
In his words: “When you come from Africa, when you make money, it’s not your money.
”You have all these relatives, cousins, and your sisters go off and get married to some guy who just wants to get married into Mikel John Obi’s family because his life is sorted, and then you start looking after this guy and before you know it… they keep having so many kids and you look at it like ‘okay you’re having this much kids, who’s going to look after them?’ It’s you!
”It’s the culture because 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, we’re going to go to the press’.
”After all I’ve done for you guys? But this happens a lot in Africa. Not everybody comes out and speaks about it,” he added.