The following was contributed by ASFL executive board member Olufemi Ogunjobi

Emmanuel Adebayor

Africans, football fans especially, are not quick to forget the embittered family feud between sports personality Emmanuel Adebayor and his family – a story of a successful child, who did all his best to save his family from hard times, but was taken advantage of until he had to burst out .

From a nuclear family of six, with extended relations, I know his story is credible and not an unusual one. Actually, it tends to be a common scenario within and outside Africa. You have that one person that is successful and if they happen to come from a poor family or relatives with extreme financial hardships, they become the bank rollers for these relatives. In fact, they are sucked dry to the bones to the point where they feel their families and loved ones would even have the skins off their bodies, if they could.

I understand African cultural set up so well, particularly for poor families whose ‘bread winner’ (mostly the father) died so early. The other members are left shattered, and struggle their way through until there is another bread-winner. In many cases, the eldest child or whoever is successful in that household takes up the responsibility and care for the mother and younger ones.

This is no bad thing, and indisputably, families – your people, are an integral part of one’s life, and should be taken care of to the best of one’s abilities, but not to be dependent on for survival.  

In his Facebook rant, the former Arsenal man said he woke up from a nap in his own house in France to find his brothers holding a knife to his throat, over money they felt he should give them. He had earlier made some cash sacrifices to save both his elder and younger siblings from hardship, and to make them have a life of their own. The Togolese striker accuses Rotimi, his younger brother of stealing shirts signed by late Marc-Vivien Foe and Zinedine Zidane among other things over the years. He reiterates the accusation of Rotimi stealing 21 phones from a football academy in France, which Adebayor said he paid for, and said he funded Rotimi and a friend’s trip to Dubai to try and make a career, only for him to return after four days.

While growing up, my father taught me and my 3 siblings to be self-reliant, independent and responsible for ourselves. He narrates how he had to shoulder the heavy responsibilities of his family, as a first child, after their father’s demise. The burden was so much on him that it affected us – his children. When he could no longer bear it, the family members turned their backs at him.

Such is Adebayor’s story. It typifies how dependence is killing African families. Some family members are parasites. They depend heavily on whoever is the bread-winner in their family and fail to take responsibility for their lives. In some extreme situations, when such breadwinners die, the family members gang up around his wealth and decide how it should be shared. Except with strong legal intervention in the distribution of wealth, such family members leave the deceased’s immediate family to suffer. They always claim that their ‘son’ laboured so hard for them to enjoy as well, after all, blood is thicker than water.

The most important single concern in our society today is personal responsibility. Societal systems that encourage dependency destroy the capacity of individuals to achieve their own goals. It is not possible for someone else to be responsible for others.

Societal structures that encourage dependence harm the very society itself. One of the pillars of a free and sane society is personal responsibility. In order to be productive, individuals must think for themselves, to pursue their truths as they know them, and earn their happiness. Independent thinkers who are innovative, creative, and personally responsible make human flourishing possible. Not pests.