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Chief Michael Obi, the father of Super Eagles Captain, John Mikel Obi, says the player had not spoken to him in five years before the commencement of the Russia 2018 World Cup.
The 75-year-old man disclosed this in an interview with Daily Trust. In the interview, he narrated his recent ordeal in the hands of kidnappers while his son was playng for Nigeria at the World Cup.
He said Mikel paid the N10million ranson to free him after he was contacted by his brother, Ebele, who is the goalkeeper for Heartlands of Owerri.
On his relationship with Mikel, the old man said if not for the opportunity created by the just concluded World Cup in Russia, it would have been five years since he last spoke to Mikel on phone.
His words: “My relationship with Mikel is an issue, but we don’t know what to do. It’s over five years now without a phone call from him to me. But he communicates with his mother.
“There is nothing I have not done to fix it. God has told me that I should not feel hurt. When we start to talk about it, I say, ‘Well, as long as I see him on TV, doing great, no problem’.
“During the just-concluded World Cup, one or two days to one of their matches, we spoke. He called his mum, and she told me that Nchekwube (Mikel) was on the phone and I told him that God will see him through. I prayed for him. That’s it.
“When he first joined Chelsea, my people in Anambra were very happy that God has blessed their son, and when he came to Abuja, they prepared very well with the hope that he will come to our hometown. They even made some magazines. It was grand. But he didn’t come. It was a shameful thing to me, as a father.
“He once told his brother that sometimes he picks his phone to call me, but something tells him not to.
“Sometime last year, he was to bring his twins so that I could name them, he said he would. But he didn’t. His other colleagues frequent home, so I don’t understand.”
On how he was kidnapped, Chief Obi said: “I was travelling home for a family meeting in Enugu. Not quite long after a checkpoint, we heard gunshots ahead of us, so we stopped.
“My driver reckoned it was armed robbers, and tried to reverse the car. But another car from nowhere blocked us from behind, and the people within came and dragged us out. The kidnappers were six, well-armed and masked. .
“They assaulted us, and dragged us into the bush. We walked for many hours, and when I complained that I could not continue, they beat me again. Eventually, they told my driver to carry me on his back.
“But after a while, he also got tired and dropped me. We walked into the bush for what seemed like the whole night, until the next morning. I asked them what they wanted from me, and that was when they told me they wanted N100m.
“We communicated in Hausa, and some broken English. I told them I could not afford it, and they said they heard that my son sends me N50m to me bi-weekly. I told them I only had N2 million in my bank account.
“I finally pegged it at N10 million. My other son, Ebele, who is the goalkeeper for Heartlands of Owerri, contacted Mikel. That was how the ransom was made available.”