Why my father asked for ‘impossible’ bride price — Bianca Ojukwu

Former most beautiful girl in Nigeria Bianca Ojukwu has hailed her late father’s wisdom in demanding an “impossible bride price” of 100 pre-independence copper coins before her marriage to the late Biafran warlord Emeka Ojukwu in 2001.

Her father late C.C. Onoh, a notable Igbo leader and businessman, initially opposed the union. However, 20 years after the glamorous wedding, Bianca has opened up on the reason her father not only resisted the marriage but also demanded such bride price.

She said in a Facebook post over the weekend that when she asked her father what informed that request years later, he laughed and told her: “I had to make it quite 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 for him. 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!”

However, Bianca said though those copper coins proved difficult to get, as “people were dispatched to various parts of the country in search of them (It cost so much more to source the coins than they were actually worth).”

“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. May their triumphant souls continue to rest in the peace of the Lord. Amen,” she added.

In a related post to celebrate the anniversary of the payment of her bride price, Bianca paid tributes to the two great men in her life.

“On this Landmark anniversary, I pay tribute to my father Chief C.C. Onoh (this man of steel dressed in these pictures, in the sky blue kaftan) whose initial resistance and tenacity helped oil the wheels to propel what would eventually become a highly successful marriage,” she wrote.

“My husband was determined to prove himself a worthy son-in-law and I also celebrate my knight in shining armor, Dim oma, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu for validating the choice I made, for being a wonderful husband and a devoted father to our children….Oga m, Gi nwe aka!”