I could have been allowed to complete my term as NCWD Director General – Onyeka Onwenu

Onyeka Onwenu has bared her mind on the termination of her appointment as the Director-General (DG) of the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD) by President Muhammadu Buhari in February 2016.

Onwenu said she could have been allowed to complete her four year term before her abrupt disengagement.

She was appointed by former President Goodluck Jonathan in September 2013, and about nine months after Buhari took over as President, he disengaged Onwenu and 25 other Chief Executive Officers of federal government parastatals, agencies and commissions.

In a chat with Neusroom on September 25, 2020,  Onwenu said though she would not have wanted to have her appointment renewed because it was challenging in every way, “I was a little more than halfway through my four year tenure. I could have been allowed to complete my term.”

The singer spent a sort of controversial two years in charge of NCWD following a series of headbutting she had with some staff of the agency.

In 2016, she claimed that, for being an Igbo woman, she was targeted and abused by some northern officers who went to the centre’s mosque to ask for the issue of a Fatwa against her over claims that she was working against the interest of the North.

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If she had been allowed to remain in the office till the end of her tenure, Onwenu said she would have been able to complete ongoing programmes the center was pursuing while she was in charge.

“We had many programmes that we were pursuing, in synergy with International Agencies that would have been of immense benefit to Nigerian women,” she said. “But I am at the same time very very proud of what we achieved in such a short time and with little funds. I thank God for that.”