Sola Onayiga – ‘I’m In The Midst Of Something Heavy Now,’ Husband Tells Netng As Nollywood Actress Passes On

Veteran Nollywood actress Sola Onayiga (nee Awojobi) is dead.

Multiple sources said Onayiga died on Monday, July 18, 2022.

Renowned movie critic Husseini Shaibu and Nollywood Actress Bose Joseph also confirmed Onayiga’s death in separate posts on social media.

Although Netng could not immediately confirm the cause of her death, her husband, Pastor Tosin Onayiga, promised to respond later when a Netng correspondent called him on Monday morning.

“Give me a few hours. I’m in the midst of something heavy now. I will get back to you,” Onayiga, who was a journalist before becoming a Pastor, told Netng.

At he time of publishing this report, more than three hours after the call, Onayiga has not responded as promised.

We also called and sent a message to the President of the Directors Guild of Nigeria, Victor Okhai. He is yet to respond.

Sola Onayiga started her acting career with radio drama before becoming a stage actor.

In a career spanning over three decades, Onayiga made her name from ‘Checkmate’ in the early 1990s and ‘Fuji House of Commotion’ in the early 2000s as Ireti aka ‘Catering Practical’.

After leaving secondary school, Onayiga worked as an interviewer with the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA).

“I interviewed those who went round the country to sample opinions about the suitability of Abuja as the Federal Capital Territory,” she said in a 2006 interview.

She abandoned her studies at the National Institute of Internal Auditors in her second year to study Theatre Arts at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife.

Onayiga, who hails from Ikorodu in Lagos State, is also the younger sister of Prof Ayodele Awojobi, the mechanical engineering genius who designed a bi-directional Armoured vehicle which can be moved forward and backward without turning it round. He also singlehandedly converted a car from right hand to left hand and was a renowned activist before his death in September 1984.

The late actress also gave politics a shot in 2015 and ran for a seat in the Lagos State House of Assembly to represent Ikorodu constituency one under the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

She told TVC in 2017 that aside from being a pastor’s wife, she also runs a Creative Arts Academy with her husband.

“I started from the stage before going to school. When you don’t have the knowledge of what you are doing, you will go the wrong way. Some learn on the job, and some attend school before, but you have to be trained,” she said.

“She is a living testament that the route to excellence in acting begins with stagecraft,” Femi Akintunde-Johnson, one of Nigeria’s most respected veteran journalists, wrote in his book ‘Reflections’ published in 2021

Related Topics

• amaka igwe
• fuji house of commotion
• Sola Onayiga
• Tosin Onayiga