My mum brought food to me every weekend for years in university. There were no cellphones then. I just waited until she showed up and most times I was already hungry and broke.
One weekend at the end of the month when I was completely dry, I waited and she hadn’t shown up by afternoon and I used to live off campus and far from school. I decided to start walking to the campus to see who I could beg for a loan.
As I came out of my road and into a long stretch to campus, I saw my mum walking towards me with a cooler of food on her head. Her car had broken down and she still found a way to come to me even if it meant walking towards my place.
I still have that image in my head and I am grateful to her for it and every thing else including making sure my business started by helping me off my feet.
My father also did the same thing once when I was out of school and running a business but was in difficulty. His own car was broken too and showed up on a the back of a commercial bike (which were now more common) to bring me foodstuff unsolicited and unplanned. He saved my life then too. He didn’t just stop there, he took me to people who could revive my business at their homes when his car was back working. Someone he helped 20 years earlier finally gave me a break that helped me get our first office and paid rent for a decade.
Parents are the real superheroes.
"You grew up hearing tales," and that is precisely the problem. Because you have never stopped to ask yourself WHY you heard those specific tales and WHO made sure you heard those tales.
You "grew up hearing" that Abacha supposedly stole $4bn, but there is ACTUAL DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE that his immediate military predecessor made at least $12bn of Nigeria's Gulf War oil windfall disappear into private hands - why didn't you "grow up hearing" that?
You "grew up hearing" that Abacha was a "corrupt dictator," but why did you NOT "grow up hearing" that the actual dictator who occupied that seat before him singlehandedly minted at least 3 of the USD billionaires that you worship today, including his wife's tailor that was awarded an oil block and is now Africa's richest woman, or another one that was a taxi driver and now owns a telco and an oil company?
Who made sure you didn't hear that, but you heard something about Abacha?
You "grew up hearing" that Nigerians suffered economically under Abacha, but you can NEVER prove it with numbers because IT IS NOT TRUE! Nigerians did suffer from fuel shortages and other things that led to the infamous Abacha stove, but numbers cannot lie and the numbers show that inflation in Nigeria under Abacha fell to single digits, the USD exchange rate fell and stabilised remarkably, and Nigeria's foreign reserves grew from $200m to over $9bn - without high oil prices.
Since the "Abacha hardship" cannot be proven with numbers - which directly contradict the narrative - someone has made sure that you "grew up hearing tales" and anecdotes in lieu of actual facts, figures and data. And funny enough, even in filling your heads with those anecdotes and stories, the period of 1985-1993, which was actually the most damaging period in Nigeria's entire postwar history, is NEVER mentioned.
You hear a lot about Abacha killing people extra judicially, but you NEVER hear that extra judicial killing of private citizens first became institutionalised under Ibrahim Babangida - to the point of sending letter bombs to kill journalists. You NEVER hear that the first time in Nigeria's history when Nigerians began emigrating enmasse was during that period, and that the reason why almost every urban Nigerian family is split across multiple countries and continents is Ibrahim Babangida and his ruinous SAP era.
You don't hear about how drug trafficking became so institutionalised under Babangida that people like Bola Tinubu started vying for political office in 1992. You don't hear about how Babangida was instrumental in reducing Nigeria's influence in Africa by cutting funding to African liberation movements, while providing funding and support to his fellow CIA assets like Yoweri Museveni to gain power that they have not relinquished since 1985.
You instead "grew up hearing" one specific set of stories to reinforce one specific idea in your mind, so that even when you come across hard numbers and facts that contradict the stories, they have become part of your emotional makeup and are impossible to dislodge.
This was EXACTLY how the exact same American information warriors came in 2015 - when Nigeria was enjoying its biggest economic breakout since 1974 and was the 3rd fastest growing economy on the planet - and they started filling your head with stories about how "Jonathan is corrupt and incompetent" and you had never had it that bad before, to the point where you voluntarily went to the polls and removed the guy who took you into the MINT bloc, only to replace him with Muhammadu fucking Buhari.
Now here you are 11 years later, and you clearly still don't understand the power of storytelling to mess up your mind and destroy your life.
Continue cursing Abacha like Washington wants you to. Shebi his murder brought prosperity to Nigeria and you're better off now?
Whenever you wake up will be your morning.