After nearly a decade away in the United States—attending prep school, and later studying International Relations and Communications at Wellesley College—Onyeka Onwenu refused to conform to the mediocrity she found upon her return to Nigeria in 1980.

"Coming home was like closing my eyes to all I had seen, covering my ears to all I had heard, holding my nose down and diving into the waters, unsure of whether or not the tides would be in my favour," she wrote in her memoir, My Father's Daughter.

Like the typical returnee from America, having known the relative efficiency of having a basic standard of amenities, Onwenu fought mediocrity at every turn upon arrival. A somewhat princess bride, she refused to accept workplace inconveniences like sweating through news production at the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) because no one maintained the air conditioning units. Though she would eventually learn to navigate such impasses to get her work done, becoming attuned to the inconveniences, these battles with dysfunction were a recurring theme even at the height of her sprawling career.

In 2000, more than a decade after she worked as an NTA employee, she staged a three-day hunger strike in front of the station's premises in Victoria Island. Her protest was over their refusal to pay royalties for the repeated airing of her shows on the network and the use of her song "Iyogogo," which ironically is a call to action, for more than eight years to open the station's workday. Onwenu was criticised by fans and family alike and blacklisted for daring to demand a right she knew was hers.

Having once been a novice artiste herself, unaware of contracts and financial arrangements made on her behalf with record label EMI that put her in difficult positions, Onwenu understood the burden of being a forerunner. Not many Nigerian artistes back then knew about the business side of show business. But for her persistence, many freedoms enjoyed in the music industry today would be non-existent.

Breaking barriers came with the heavy burden of setting standards. While this led to a certain self-importance—which she freely admits to—her father's early lesson that fame was temporary kept her grounded. This might explain why her work away from the spotlight was just as meaningful, even if less celebrated.

Speaking Truth to Power

It was easy to tag Onwenu as a difficult woman when she refused to conform, especially as one who returned from America a fully formed woman with an independent mind and a feminist voice.

Her experience as a translator and guide at the United Nations exposed her to global issues—apartheid in South Africa, the occupation of Namibia, and the Cold War—giving her an acute ability to recognise when power was being abused and to speak up for those on the receiving end. She understood that people, especially those in the grassroots were at the core of her activism and she was not afraid of the hard work it required. For her, commendation and opposition were two sides of the same coin when dealing with people.

Long before the Onyeka Onwenu of One Love fame, there was an opinionated thirteen-year-old living in Port Harcourt who critiqued the government of Nigeria for poking its nose into the affairs of Rhodesia, in an article which never saw the light of day because her mother marched her back by the ear to the Nigerian Pilot office on Bathurst Street to withdraw the hurriedly scribbled draft, in fear that she would annoy the government.

In some way, fighting was sustenance for Onwenu, and when she had no fight in her during the Nigerian Civil War, she banded with her sisters to form a singing group. Under the cocoa trees on her uncle's once thriving farmland, which now served as camouflage from air raids, they amused and entertained family and neighbours with their music, singing about dying soldiers, love in the time of war and their hope in God to see them through the colossal loss.

Surely, a mind once preoccupied with surviving war would keep in its vault a residual inclination to always be ready to fight, and this early pattern of speaking out would define her career. She became a woman who stood on the precipice of being contrarian, never afraid to reject popular opinion or stand with the dangerous side of truth, whether it was writing in favour of Chief MKO Abiola to defy a government bent on erasing the truth of June 12, 1993 and its enduring legacies, or renouncing the Buhari/Idiagbon witchhunt of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

It was against one of the many decrees of the Buhari regime to travel with foreign currency and not declare it. Fela was arrested and sentenced to five years' imprisonment for attempting to unlawfully export £1,600 as he travelled to a London event with his band. He would be released after twenty months, the result of pressure sparked by international outrage.

It was certain at the time that arresting and jailing Fela, a largely controversial man himself, was a targeted witch hunt, with important witnesses barred from testifying at his trial and Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon personally announcing that he would rot in jail. Onwenu writes in her memoir that she called out a hypocritical government and the many implications of the witch hunt in an op-ed she wrote in a newspaper at a time when the tyrannical circus of a government made arrests for far less. It is interesting, lucky even, given the type of dictatorial government of the day that she was not arrested or imprisoned for that. She thinks it is perhaps thanks to a well-known fandom and reverence of her music by the second in command, Idiagbon, that she was likely not arrested.

There were repercussions for her outspokenness though, as is most often the case when women who wear their feminism and freedom as a courageous badge of honour speak up. This myopic misunderstanding of her independent mind was a thing she soon learned to accommodate, mostly for her own sanity.

Even Chinua Achebe, the literary giant, expressed reservations about the woman-led series of interviews she conducted for her award-winning NTA/BBC documentary Nigeria; The Squandering of Riches which gathered praise abroad but not at home. The documentary looked at the country through the eyes of the citizens whose main grievance was corruption in the government.

A Gateway to Politics

Onwenu's eventual foray into politics seemed almost inevitable. As the daughter of a politician, her path always crossed with politics, but her music was her entry to the corridors of government, whether it was composing catchy campaign songs that carried her voice from state to state or, collaborating with development organisations on children and women's rights, and championing causes from planned parenthood to sexual health and literacy.

While she was revered by governments, those she campaigned for or opposed, one episode that cast a shadow on her reputation for years was the controversial part she played in the two-million-man march organised in 1998 by Daniel Kanu's Youth Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA) group in support of General Abacha's campaign to become Nigeria's democratic president.

Onwenu attempts to set the record straight in her memoir, explaining that she had been told by organisers that the rally was to gather support and momentum for the Super Eagles going to the World Cup in France. However, Daniel Kanu, a well-known American returnee and self-appointed flagbearer of the Abacha campaign was open about his connection to Abacha. To know that he was the organiser of such a rally that had the military government written all over it was an oversight that someone of Onwenu's status should not have made.

Onwenu—whose entry into the workings of Nigeria was first as a fact-checking reporter and who as far back as 1988 was approached by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), because of her credibility, to use media and music to educate communities—should not simply be someone easily hoodwinked by hangers-on of the military junta of the day.

Despite this, her influence in political and public circles remained substantial and she ran for the post of local government chairman of Ideato North LGA of Imo State twice but lost. Still, she consolidated her efforts in her appointments, first as the chairperson for the Imo Council of Arts and Culture and then later as Director of the National Centre for Women Development. These positions she held were not void of their distractions and chaos; from sexual propositions to misogyny, to inequality and lack of adequate funding.

Onwenu's directorship began the innovative trend of joining the global celebration of the International Day of the Girl Child in Nigeria every 11th of October in partnership with the Friends of Africa NGO, and the involvement of the First Lady. It has since gathered significant yearly awareness and call to action for ending child marriage, violence and discrimination against girls, and opening more conversations and access to girls' education and menstrual health, with several organisations like Seyi Oluyole's Dream Catchers taking these on as a social responsibility.

Many of the disappointments Onwenu felt taking on leadership roles became pivotal tools she used to fuel her activism and public intervention, especially for women and children.

A Legacy of Influence

Whether it was judging the popular music talent show, X Factor, acting in some of Nollywood’s biggest movies and alongside Hollywood’s biggest stars, or navigating politics, Onyeka Onwenu inspired a generation of women to feel comfortable doing things that served them.

Her legacy lies not just in the specific battles she fought and won but in showing that non-conformity isn't just about saying no to power; it is about saying yes to the possibility of change and putting yourself forward, even when it means standing alone.

That her final moments came after performing her beloved music to a crowd of people who had been there for the span of her career feels befitting, considering how deeply rooted she was in the spaces she occupied. Through entertainment, politics, advocacy, and philanthropy, Onwenu moved with the grace and power of a stallion, undaunted and assured.