The captain of Nigeria’s national football team, John Obi Mikel, has revealed he was told his father had been kidnapped four hours before the crunch World Cup game against Argentina, which saw the West African nation knocked out of the tournament, the UK Guardian news site reports.
Pa Michael Obi was abducted in south-east Nigeria as he travelled to a funeral along the Makurdi-Enugu expressway from Jos, the report says.
Police secured his release on Monday, Mikel said, adding that he had been tortured and was now in hospital.
The 26 June incident was the second one, his father having been kidnapped in 2011.
He said that he only shared the distressing news with a few close friends but not with any of the Nigerian team officials or his team-mates:
I played while my father was in the hands of bandits… I had to suppress the trauma.
I was emotionally distraught and I had to make the decision about whether I was mentally ready to play. I was confused. I did not know what to do but, in the end, I knew that I could not let 180 million Nigerians down. I had to shut it out of my head and go and represent my country first.
I was told that they would shoot my dad instantly if I reported [it] to the authorities or told anybody. I also did not want to discuss it with the coach [Gernot Rohr] because I did not want my issue to become a distraction to him or the rest of the team on the day of such an important game. As much as I wanted to discuss it with the coach, I could not.”
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