Her engaging delivery on the stage at an elegant birthday party which happened evening time in Lagos on Tuesday, 30 July 2024 gave a reminder about how exceptional the 80s to 90s-peaking journalist and songbird Onyeka Onwenu is when making art. She had ended her performance on a high and walked back to her seat to watch other events go on without any event, but shortly after that, she reportedly slumped in her chair and was soon rushed to the hospital.

At the Reddington Hospital where Onyeka Onwenu, also known by her journalism colleagues as the Elegant Stallion, had been driven by emergency responders to be resuscitated, there wasn’t much the staff could do to resuscitate the patient because it was there that she was confirmed dead according to several reports.

One eye witness at the birthday party venue who was pondering on the evening loss had said that the deceased just performed at the birthday of Mrs Stella Okoli today, and after performing, she slumped. She was taken to Reddington Hospital and she couldn’t make it. The celebrant, Stella Okoli is a distinguished pharmacist and the founder of Emzor, a company which specialises in manufacturing high-quality drugs locally, and a musician such as the deceased was just the right personality to lighten the atmosphere more.

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Nostalgic video clips have circulated on social media since Onyeka Onwenu’s death. One showed the 72-year-old who is an indigene of Imo in the southeast but was raised in neighbouring Rivers State, allowing the microphone she was holding to magnet her towards a politician at the party, Peter Obi.

The latter, a Labour Party candidate in the 2023 Presidential Election, reacted with a pat and then the Wait For Me singer sang back to the main stage during the exciting night.

When the news about Onyeka Onwenu passing after a birthday party performance seemed to have taken a place of permanence, it started generating reactions from those who adored all her work back then in the 80s and a couple of decades after that.

On X where the story about her death has been trending, the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Mr Akinwunmi Adesina tweeted: Adieu Onyeka Onwenu, Nigeria’s music legend, broadcaster, actress and social activist. Your brilliance, poise, impeccable [work] and professional [candour] marked your stardom. You were proudly Nigerian. Thank you for [your] incredible contributions to Nigeria. May your soul rest in peace.

Adieu Onyeka Onwenu, Nigeria’s music legend, broadcaster, actress and social activist. Your brilliance, poise, impeccable works and professional candor marked your stardom. You were proudly Nigerian.Thank you for incredible contributions to Nigeria. May your soul rest in peace. pic.twitter.com/1Wl4O0tBPK

— Akinwumi A. Adesina (@akin_adesina) July 31, 2024

The same goes for Dr Bukola Saraki, the former Senate President of Nigeria giving a music critic’s perspective on the life she had lived in his early morning post. Dr Saraki, who had buried his mother 12 days ago admitted that I have always admired Onyeka Onwenu’s powerful voice and the messages in her music—she was a true icon, a talented artist, and an advocate for social change.

Advocacy during the elegant stallion’s life meant a British Broadcasting Corporation in collaboration with the Nigerian Television Authority-commissioned documentary on the degrading economic and social life in Nigeria.

I have always admired Onyeka Onwenu's powerful voice and the messages in her music—she was a true icon, a talented artist, and an advocate for social change. Her music transcended generations and borders and struck a chord with people from all walks of life.

Today, along with… pic.twitter.com/CAGyrLUg9u

— Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki (@bukolasaraki) July 31, 2024

This was back in 1984 when Onyeka Onwenu had written the script and then presented the documentary titled Nigeria: A Squandering of Riches. The corruption problem that the country confronts today had long been in the making and this was one of the issues the presenter addressed early on.

The marks of Onwenu’s exceptionality go beyond broadcast and music. She had been able to take her advocacy around the marginalisation of her Igbo race under a federal government system by taking cinema audiences back to the Nigerian Civil War that lasted from 6 July 1967 to 15 January 1970. This was Onyeka Onwenu in the Half of the Yellow Sun (2013) film, adapted from a book written by the Nigerian author based in the United States, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

In Half of the Yellow Sun, Onyeka Onwenu played out the trials of war as the mother of the revolutionary university lecturer Odenigbo, a character interpreted by the British actor of Nigerian ancestry Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Rounding up the scenes of Half of the Yellow Sun featured Odenigbo’s mother who cannot comprehend her son’s strictly modern approach to the universe preferred to end up as a casualty towards her people’s cause for freedom, and is an attribute that mirrors Onyeka Onwenu who played the character in real life.

Braveheart (2018) marked a remarkable age the Nigerian film industry was heading after Netflix acquired distribution rights to the release. A tweet by the streaming platform this afternoon continued the outpouring with Rest in Power Madam Onyeka Onwenu. Legend, Queen, Elegant Stallion.

Rest in Power Madam Onyeka Onwenu. Legend, Queen, Elegant Stallion 🕊️ pic.twitter.com/DRYIpZ0uLA

— Netflix Nigeria (@NetflixNaija) July 31, 2024

In the Netflix movie, Onyeka Onwenu took on another motherly role playing Abigail Obiagu alongside Nollywood stars Pete Edochie and Genevieve Nnaji in the cast.

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Ayodele Johnson

Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.