I was targeted and abused for being an Igbo woman who came to give jobs to and elevate my people while sidelining them. - Onyeka Onwenu

NTA used 'Iyi Ogogo' to open and close their station for eight years, but they didn't pay me a kobo. They didn't even ask my permission. When I asked, they barred me from being shown on NTA and I went on hunger strike. They felt they were doing me a favour by using my music. Ben Bruce said 'Don't touch that lady. I don't want to see her face, I don't want to hear her music on my station'. And I said no, it wasn't his station, that NTA belonged to the nation. This was in 2000.

My personal memory of Dr Alvan Ikoku covers the period of the Biafra war when he made every effort to ferry my sister Ijeoma, my first cousin Ifeoma Ejindu and myself to Gabon, to save us from the war. Eventually, Ijeoma and Ifeoma were cleared to leave but I was not. I remember vividly how we all visited with the old man and knelt down to thank him for his efforts in saving us from the war. Dr Alvan was particularly touched by my show of gratitude, even though he did not succeed in getting me on the approved list and he said so. As fate would have it, the war ended just two weeks before my sister and cousin were to leave Biafra.

Politics must not be left in the hands of notorious people or the mediocre. We must bring our best into it and no one has a right to complain if one refuses to get into politics, and some other people ventured into it and make laws that will affect your generation yet unborn.