Former Super Eagles captain, Mikel Obi, says former Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich, offered to send special forces to Nigeria when the father of the footballer, Michael Obi (Snr), was kidnapped for the second time in 2018.
“… I remember Roman Abramovich saying, ‘do you want me to send people over? Because I know if I send people over, I can get your dad out’ — I was like, how are you going to do this?” the Chelsea legend said during an interview with UK-based talkSPORT.
Four hours before the crucial match between Nigeria and Argentina at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, Mikel said he received a phone call from his brother informing him that their father had been kidnapped, an event the footballer described as “shocking”.
Mikel said he was alone in a room for more than 30 minutes thinking of what to do just hours before what the ex-Stoke City player called “one of the biggest games of his life”. Nevertheless, he went ahead to feature in the encounter, which Nigeria lost 2-1.
He noted that Chelsea was very supportive during the period and claimed that Mr Abramovich, a Russian Oligarch and the owner of the West London club between 2003 and 2022, floated the idea of sending “his people” over who would have got Mikel’s father out.
However, Mikel, who asked Mr Abramovich, “how are you going to do this?” – was apparently reluctant to accept the offer, which would have been tricky for the businessman to carry out on a foreign soil without the Nigerian government sanctioning such an operation.
Mr Obi was released by his captors after a ransom which Mikel described as a “crazy amount of money”, was paid. He said they threatened to shoot his father and dump his body somewhere if he tried to be uncooperative, but he eventually paid the undisclosed amount.
