BEVERLY HILLS, April 19, (THEWILL) – Former beauty queen, Bianca Ojukwu, has narrated how her late father demanded an “impossible bride price” from her late husband, Odumegwu Ojukwu, the warlord behind the breakaway and defunct Biafran nation.
The former Nigerian Ambassador took to her social media account to mark the 20th year anniversary of her wedding to the late Ikemba of Nnewi.
In a Facebook post, she stated that her dad had asked Ojukwu to pay 100 pre-independence copper coins, an old currency, that made Ojukwu send men across the country to search for them before their eventual marriage in 2001.
She wrote: “What a day it was, and full of drama! The bride price was a daunting factor. My father, Chief CC Onoh gave his daughter’s suitor, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, a seemingly impossible task in this respect.
“He demanded a bride price of 100 pre-independence copper coins (those old coins with a hole in the middle) and where could anyone readily find these extremely rare coins, and in such quantity in 2001?
“And so people were dispatched to various parts of the country in search of the old coins. It cost so much more to source the coins than they were actually worth. Years later, I asked my father what informed his request.”
According to Bianca, her dad later disclosed that he made the unusual request to teach Ojukwu to value women.
She narrated: “He laughed and told me, ‘I had to make it difficult for him. If it were purely a matter of paying money, being a man of great means, he would have been prepared to pay any amount, no matter how huge, as bride price.
“That would have been easy. But in the course of your marriage, anytime he makes you upset and you threaten to head back home to us, he will remember the difficulty in procuring your bride price!’ Vintage Aninefungwu!
“20 years ago to this day, and I am simply awed by my father’s wisdom. I am extremely privileged to have lived under the shadow of these two great men, valiant men who rode the thunder and quelled the storm.”
