Celebrate Me With Prayers When I’m Gone – Onyeka Onwenu

In a reflection shared months back, late Nigerian singer, Onyeka Onwenu disclosed how she would like to be remembered and buried.

The vibrant musician was said to have died on the 30th of July, 2024 at the Reddington Hospital in Lagos after slumping at the birthday party of Mrs Stella Okoli.

According to her, she wants her burial to be done quick, quiet and private manner, and she wants to be celebrated with prayers and jokes when her time on earth is done.

Onyeka added that she will be very uncomfortable with a lavish burial ceremony, especially in a time of hardship and lack for most Nigerians.

Her words, “Do it quickly, quietly and privately.

Celebrate me with prayers, lunch or dinner afterwards. Share some jokes about me and laugh.

Make merriment and then go about your business. If my friends want to celebrate me, they should do so while I am alive, so that I can enjoy it with them, not when I am gone and have no idea about this. That is me Onyeka Onwenu.

I am very uncomfortable with the lavish display of wealth on any occasion, especially in a time of hardship and lack for most others.”

WOW.

Onyeka Onwenu was a Nigerian singer/songwriter, actress, human rights and social activist, journalist, politician, and former X Factor series judge. Dubbed the “Elegant Stallion” by the Nigerian press, she was a former chairperson of the Imo State Council for Arts and Culture. In 2013 she was appointed the Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of the National Centre for Women Development.

Onwenu hailed from Arondizuogu, a big town in Ideato North, Imo State, southeastern Nigeria, but was raised in Port Harcourt, the capital city of Rivers State, Nigeria.

She was the youngest daughter of Nigerian educationist and politician D. K. Onwenu, who died when she was four years old in an autocrash a week before his appointment as Minister for Education, leaving his widow, Hope, to raise five children alone after her husband’s family denied her access to his property.

Onwenu possessed a BA in International Relations and Communication from Wellesley College, Massachusetts, and an MA in Media Studies from The New School for Social Research, New York.