CHIKI KURUKA TALKS ABOUT HER NIGERIAN HERITAGE

Chiki Kuruka, wife of celebrated Kenyan musician Bien-Aimé Baraza, has opened up about her Nigerian roots, recounting her family’s experience during the Nigerian Civil War.

Chiki revealed a treasured family photograph from Orji, Owerri, circa 1956, featuring her father as a baby, her grandmother, and her grandfather. She recounted her grandmother’s words during the war: “And the planes came… As a British citizen, I was allowed to leave and go ‘home,’ but they didn’t understand that Nigeria was my home.”

Through the escalating conflict, her grandmother refused evacuation, defiantly declaring, “Then more planes came. This time for wealthy Nigerians who wanted to leave, most foreign nationals had already left. I still said no. ‘I am a Nigerian’ I said defiantly. ‘My children are Nigerian, they only know this place’. So the planes left.” 

But as conditions worsened, homes destroyed, food rationed, and lives lost. A priest confronted her with a heartbreaking truth, “Mrs. Anyadike, what point do you think you’re proving? Your children will die… You insult every Nigerian mother who would die for the opportunity you have, even if just to save her children.”

Chiki’s grandmother left for England, a country her passport claimed as hers but one her soul no longer recognised. Chiki’s father, uncle, and aunt survived. “Until the day she died, with her crackly voice, she would ask my dad ‘what’s the news of home.”

Her tribute honours her grandmother’s fierce love and resilience, “She serves as a constant reminder that you make your home where your heart lays, and you fight for it.”