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American-based lawyer and public affairs commentator, High Chief Owolabi Salis has joined millions of Nigerians to mourn Onyeka Onwenu, saying her exit marked the end of a era.
Salis described Onyeka as “not just a goddess of songs, but a multi-talented genius and all-rounder, who excelled as a veteran reporter, writer, actress, coupled with her outstanding intellect, eloquence and oration. She radiated a supreme confidence, faith and self-assuredness that was rare to come by.”
“Not only was she an exemplary symbol of womanhood, she was an illustrious child of Igboland, a pride of Nigeria, Africa and the Black race,” he said.
He described Onyeka as the elegant stallion, a quintessential bridge-builder and the very model of a detribalised Nigerian, who in her life time, was unpretensively hundred percent Igbo on one hand, just as she was equally hundred percent Nigerian on the other hand, in judicious emulation of the Biblical dictum to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.
“One recalls the strong moral and patriotic courage with which she fought and championed the cause of the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti during his detention by the Buhari-Idiagbon regime. The import of this gesture would not be much fully grasped until one recalls the sternly dictatorial nature of the military government in power at the period in question, which was notorious for its intolerance of opposition, especially through the obnoxious Decree 2, with which they gagged the press and hounded journalists in prison,” he said.
He added” “Apart from the fore-going, was her remarkable familiarity with notable Nigerian leaders like Chief MKO Abiola, and ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo among others.
“I remember witnessing on a particular occasion, when in the course of an interview, she burst into a rapturous laughter, expressing that rumors had been so rife at one time or the other, of her alleged romance at various times, with King Sunny Ade and Fela Anikulapo Kuti, just as the same rumor mill had it that she had a secret wedding with a former Nigerian president, which according to her were all lies. And don’t forget that her first and only legally married husband, for whom she bore two beautiful boys, was a Yoruba man.
“It is in this sense that one clearly perceives her cosmopolitan world-view, as expressed in her detribalised propensity as a bridge-builder, as epitomized in her epic hit” “One Love Keep Us Together,” which coincidentally was her last rendition during her performance at that fateful birthday celebration,” Salis said.
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