Nigerian singer and actress Onyeka Onwenu is dead

Nigerian singer and actress Onyeka Onwenu, considered a cultural icon, died on Tuesday at the age of 72, local media reported.

Onwenu’s career spanned music, film, journalism and politics.

Dubbed “the elegant stallion” in a media profile – a label that stuck, Onwenu came to prominence in the early 1980s with her television documentary, “Nigeria: A Squandering of Riches” which she wrote and presented while working for Nigeria’s state television.

The documentary explored citizen’s growing frustrations with the civilian government shortly before the 1983 coup and became a definitive documentation of Nigeria’s post-independence economy and politics.

Several personalities mourned her passing.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu called her a “versatile and extremely gifted artiste who applied herself to the whole gamut of artistic enterprise and expression, bringing joy and laughter to many.”