Tell me about your mum.
My mother is a complex person. I don’t remember much about her because she left when I was very young. My starkest memory of her is the long trip we took from Warri to my father’s village in Edo. She left me at my grandmother’s doorstep and said she’d be back soon. I was only 6 or 7 years old, but I remember feeling anxious. Something in me just knew she wasn’t coming back.
I tried to follow her, but she hopped on a bike and rode off. My grandmother wasn’t even home; she returned from the market to find me waiting outside.
I wouldn’t learn much about my mother until many years later. My father and his family never talked about her. It was like we all silently agreed to pretend nothing had happened.
Do you know why your mum left you there??
I didn’t know for sure until 2018, when my uncle — her younger brother, who also doesn’t speak to her anymore — reached out to me on Facebook.
I was wary about what I heard from my father and his family because I didn’t want to be a pawn in any of their agendas. But my uncle explained that both my parents were very similar: hot-headed, impatient, and stubborn. The family had advised against the relationship, but they went ahead, got traditionally married, and had me and my brother.
My dad was a roaming worker, so he would travel out of Warri a lot. After a while, he and my mother fell out, and she started using my brother and me as leverage for money or as a way to punish him — refusing to let him see us. Eventually, he got tired and stopped trying to reach out. So, she simply dumped me at his mother’s house and kept the child she could manage.
That’s a lot. How did your grandmother tell your father?
Phones and communication weren’t like they are today, and my father was constantly on the move for work. I stayed with my grandmother for nearly eight months before he even found out that I was there. I had already started school by the time he came to the village to get me.
Memories of my brother were already getting vague. I heard his name floating around in conversations in my father’s family, but he wouldn’t confirm this till I was almost 18 years old.
After you were reunited with your father, how did the rest of your childhood without your mother go?
It was both eventful and hard. I moved around a lot with my father at first. He tried to get some of his extended family to take me in, but no one wanted to. We moved from Kogi to Abuja looking for odd jobs for him to do, until we eventually settled in Suleja, Niger State in 2006. That’s where he got a job as a contractor with MTN.
Not long after, he started dating someone, and she moved in with us. One time, in 2007, I went on a two-week excursion with my Catholic school, and when I came back, I found out they’d gotten married. Just like that, she was my stepmum. It was shocking, but by then, I’d learned to get over things quickly.
That’s also around when I started having questions about my actual mother. Who was she? Where did she go? Why did she leave me? I’d go through my dad’s things when he wasn’t home and find photographs of her, which only made me more curious.
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Did you ever try to contact your mother?
Yes. Once, in 2014. I had gone to my paternal grandfather’s village for a transition-to-adulthood ceremony. Most of my father’s male relatives were there, and during a conversation, one of my aunts casually mentioned that she had my mother’s number.
Excitedly, I begged her to let me call her. When she picked up, I introduced myself as her son. She immediately hung up, and then she blocked the number.
It felt like emotional whiplash.
I’m sorry. How did this rejection affect you??
I mean, this wasn’t the first rejection. When she first left me, I had nightmares for months. I got so sick that my grandma had to call a travelling Fulani herbalist to treat me.
After I started living with my father, I became very reserved. I also started stealing petty things. I also used to be constantly angry, and I couldn’t keep friends because I would cut people off at the slightest hint of stress or negativity.
How was your relationship with your father through all of this?
I used to think he was the better parent — until 2017, when a young woman knocked on our gate and told us she was his actual first daughter. She was getting married and needed him for the traditional rites.
My stepmum was stunned because it turns out he had always known and just never told her. That removed him from whatever pedestal I had placed him on in my mind. I’m still in contact with him, but I keep my distance because I don’t trust him very much either.
What about your younger brother? Are you in contact with him?
Yes, he’s 17 now, but we’ve never met in person, and we’re not close. I don’t want to burden him with our family’s complex lore just yet. I’ve told him that when he’s a bit older, he can come to me, and I’ll answer all of his questions.
I’m also cautious because I don’t know what our mother may have told him, or whose side he’s on. I want a relationship with him, but I don’t want to expose myself to more turmoil by doing so.
How have you managed your emotions throughout these events?
I have ADHD, so it hasn’t been easy. But I recently started therapy, and it has really helped me let go of a lot of the anger, blame and resentment that I was holding on to. I now look at my past as facts — they happened, but they don’t define me.
I also started making music as a way to express myself, and I was surprised when people started connecting with it. Music is my favourite means of coping, but therapy has also helped a lot. I also go to the gym regularly, and that has had a good impact on my mental health. Now, I’ve made peace with it, I’m free, and my life can be anything I want it to be.
If your mum tried to contact you to reconcile, would you consider building a relationship with her?
Definitely not. And it’s not even because I harbour any ill emotions towards her — I’ve resolved those. I’m just very cautious about anything that can contaminate the peace I have built for myself right now.
Like I said, I’m open to connecting with my brother, but only if I feel he won’t jeopardise my peace. But other than that? I’m good, thanks.
If you’d like to connect with Dre, you can find him on his X profile here
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