07/03/2026
“MY FATHER NEVER BORROWED ANY MONEY TO SUSTAIN NIGERIA”
-Zainab Abacha opens up
“There was a sustained media war waged by the West against my late father because he was one man with the courage and resolve to never bow to their manipulative schemes.
They blacklisted Nigeria during that period, blocking access to many international opportunities, all in an effort to force him to crawl on his knees and come begging.
Yet, starting from virtually nothing, he reduced Nigeria’s external debt from approximately $36 billion to $27 billion and dramatically boosted foreign exchange reserves from about $494 million to $9.6 billion.
Western-style democracy has worked for them, but my father was more like Jerry Rawlings of Ghana—a leader determined to reset Nigeria in a rugged, no-nonsense way—because a soft, easy-going approach simply doesn’t work here.”
