Onyeka Onwenu

"“I cried my eyes out, with the realization that as difficult as my life was, it could not be compared with what Winnie Mandela was going through. I was no Winnie Mandela for sure, but I could identify with her loneliness and some of her pain. That night, I could not sleep. I had to put my pain to a song. I needed to give something back to Winnie for the sacrifice of her life to the Apartheid struggle, in which every decent human being had a stake. I saw her sacrifice as a global one, made by an African Woman, brave and courageous beyond words, for her man and her country.”"

"“Small minds, narrow minds can’t comprehend a great spirit when they see it. When they insist in stereotyping you, even when the evidence is there, look at them carefully, they are lacking some sort of professionalism.”"

"“I have learnt to keep my privacy out of the public purview especially in discussions with journalists. But there is nothing hidden in my life. I live a very open life. But I decided from day one not to discuss my family on the pages of newspapers, because it is not fair to them. They do not have the opportunity to present themselves the way they would have liked to. And that is not fair.”"

"“I wonder why government is not doing anything to protect the copyright of artistes. These are the things that affect our economy. The music industry is a large section of the economy of this country. Why is government not paying attention, not caring? These are frustrations. Your intellectual property is your wealth and somebody is sitting on it. People are making money off someone’s work.”"

"“I probably would have been somewhere buying and selling like every other woman who is trying to survive. If I didn’t have education, it would still have been the same thing. I can buy and sell at all levels, considerably.”"

"“I was targeted and abused for being an Igbo woman who came to give jobs to and elevate my people while sidelining them.”"