By Osa Mbonu-Amadi,   Arts Editor

TRULY, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist,” Jesus said in Mathew 11:11.

The statement may not accurately describe the late Onyeka Onwenu, but it is possible to ascribe some aspect of it to the life and times of the Elegant Stallion.

A child of destiny, Onyeka was great by all standards. She even had a patch of white hair on her forehead, which Igbos call ‘ugo’, a sort of birthmark for greatness. But she was a strong-willed lady that bottled a lot of things within her and would have taken all the secrets to her grave if her children had not persuaded her to document some of them. But even at that, there are enough reasons to believe that Onyeka took a good chunk of the story of her life to her grave.     

In her memoir, Onyeka narrated in details how she fell in love at the age of 13 in 1965 with an undisclosed young man. She was to retain in her heart until she died on July 30, 2024, the sparks this mystery lover generated in her life, a lover she said she could not marry but whom she had always ran into out of ‘serendipity’ throughout her life. Who was that man Onyeka described as Prince Charming? Raphael Obioha, whom Onyeka describes in her memoir, fits the bill.

Raph Obioha and the mystery lover

“In 1966,” Onyeka wrote, “I was almost fifteen years old. A close family friend, Raphael Obioha, was celebrating his 21st birthday, a landmark age. The L N Obioha family was prominent in Port Harcourt. Mazi L N Obioha, the legendary self-made palm oil merchant, industrialist, political financier and Arondizuogu patriot, played an important role in my family after Papa’s death. He facilitated Richard’s (Onyeka’s elder brother) sojourn to Belgium before the civil war broke out. From there, Richard found his way to London, then Chicago. It was thanks to him that my brother was not killed during the war.” It is possible that this was the reason Onyeka’s mystery lover was welcomed in her family.   

“Raphael Obioha was a gangling, good-looking chap, the toast of young ladies in Port Harcourt,” Onyeka wrote. “His party was the talk of the town. Everywhere was agog with anticipation as friends prepared for this special birthday party. I was not invited, neither was Ralph’s sister, Eunice, who was a good friend of mine. We were considered too young. Brother Ralph had warned Eunice and I that he would walk us out of the party if we dared to show our faces.” 

Note that Onyeka would also describe the mysterious young man she fell in love with at 13 as ‘Prince Charming, tall, dark and handsome young man’. The 14-year-old Onyeka and her friend, Eunice (Raph’s younger sister) were not invited to the party, and were clearly warned to stay away. Eunice complied, but Onyeka couldn’t stay away. Encouraged by her mother, she went to the party. When a 14-year-old girl had been eyeing a 21-year-old handsome boy from a wealthy family since she was 13, this could happen.       

Mum dresses  Onyeka for the party

“I observed, as everyone got ready, taking it all in and wishing that I was a few years older. I did not know that my mother had been watching me all the while. She quickly organised a navy blue chiffon dress for me, and gave me her necklace with multicoloured stones. I wore my pair of black shoes and Sister dabbed my face with a little make-up. I looked and felt good, although a little subdued with fear of expulsion from the party I was not invited to. My mum knew what she was doing and got my older siblings to acquiesce.”

Raph chooses to dance with Onyeka

 “To the party, I went. As I sat in one corner, hoping that the celebrant would not notice me; my siblings were all having a great time and even forgot that I was there. I began to think that Eunice was far smarter, staying at home. I was way in over my head. This company was beyond me.

“As part of any respectable birthday celebration, a dance dedicated to the celebrant with a female guest of his choice was one of the highlights of the soirée. It allowed the celebrant to play Prince to a Cinderella.

“From the corner of my eyes, I saw him approach, looking dashing in his tight-fitting pair of trousers and matching ‘sopedo’ shoes, the type with the long, pointed tip. I thought to myself, this is it. I braced up, closed my eyes, and waited for the marching orders. To my dismay, what I heard instead was, ‘Excuse me dance.’

“He did not recognise me. My mum had done such a good job that he was convinced I was a new catch. We were, of course, the connoisseur of all eyes until Raphael realised that he had been hoodwinked. Nonetheless, he did not throw me out. He took it in good faith, even if I had deprived him of the opportunity of landing a new catch with his first dance. I was more of a sister than a possible girlfriend.

“It was a defining moment for me. I knew I was still too young but I realised that in time, not too far from then, I would become an adult. It ended up being my coming out party, as well as a birthday party for Ralph Obioha.”

Co-incidences?  Not likely

Writing about Raph Obioha’s birthday party in 1966, Onyeka disclosed that Raph was celebrating his 21st year. We already know that Onyeka was 14 years old in 1966. That is a difference of 7 years between Raph Obioha and Onyeka Onwenu. Later, while describing the mystery lover whom she fell in love with while she was 13 years old, Onyeka disclosed that in 1971, she was 19 years old while her mystery lover was 26. Again, that is a difference of 7 years. That fact is too accurate to be a mere co-incidence:   

“In 1971, after the war had ended and just months before I was to leave for school in the United States, I ran into Prince Charming on the streets of Lagos. It was quite simply by serendipity. From then on and in full view of my family, we began a friendship. I was 19 years old. He was 26.”

Onyeka saw war, death, hunger

But as happens to most mortals, life also served Onyeka Onwenu a good dose of its bitter side. From ‘a charming and attractive girl who was often deliberate about looking good’ in her 2nd year at Amumara Girls Secondary School, Mbaise, Imo State (1967 at 15 years old), Onyeka had grown into an 18-year-old young woman by 1970, steeled by her traumatic experiences in the just ended civil war. She saw conflict and bloodshed, gory images of her people cut open, and held dying babies in her arms until their last breath. She heard the screams of wounded soldiers, saw death, hunger and deprivations.

Onyeka’s aura too powerful for hubby

Yet, life was to deal her a different kind of bad hand after she got married in 1984 to a Yoruba Muslim whom she fell in love with and had two children for. She was already a celebrity. She told of how her husband complained about her “aura being so powerful that when they entered a room together, he felt smaller and did not like it.”

 “The marriage did not quite end immediately. The breakup had stretched on for years. The marriage was revived only if my husband needed some help from me. I would become an enemy as soon as the help was rendered.…

“For some reason, my husband had always wanted to be the one to decide if and when our marriage would break up. It was very important to him, and he did break us up a good number of times. But the final break was my decision, and he has never forgiven me for that. I should have allowed myself to be trampled upon for as long as he wanted. I should have fallen apart and been unable to cope. However, much to his chagrin, I kept getting up and raising our family by myself.”