Queen Oladunni Decency occupies an important place in the history of Nigerian popular music. Known as Sherifat Oladunni Oduguwa, and in later accounts also rendered as Serifatu Oladunni Oduguwa, she became a singer, guitarist and leader of the Unity Orchestra during a period when professional jùjú bands were overwhelmingly associated with male performers and bandleaders.
A photograph taken by Abi Morocco Photos shows Decency performing with her guitar at a naming ceremony at Chief Odunlami House, Anthony Village, Lagos, during the 1970s.
The image captures an important feature of her career. Decency was not simply a vocalist standing in front of musicians. She was an instrumentalist and the leader of a working professional orchestra.
The photograph later became part of the archival project surrounding Abi Morocco Photos: Spirit of Lagos, an exhibition at Autograph in London from 31 October 2024 to 22 March 2025. Abi Morocco Photos was operated by the husband-and-wife team John Abe and Funmilayo Abe, whose photographs documented everyday and cultural life in Lagos during the 1970s.
From Maracas to Guitar
Queen Oladunni Decency’s musical career developed gradually.
Her involvement in music stretched back to the early 1960s. Rather than beginning immediately as a guitarist and orchestra leader, she first played maracas. She later developed her skills on guitar and became publicly identified with the instrument.
Her progression from maracas to guitar formed an important part of her development as a professional musician. Over time, she moved from accompanying roles into a more visible position as a guitarist and leader.
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Decency’s professional life was also closely connected with Gilbert Oduguwa, her husband, who was himself a musician and had previously led a highlife organisation.
Their partnership became central to the formation and development of the orchestra through which Queen Oladunni Decency established her name.
Queen Oladunni Decency and the Unity Orchestra
The Unity Orchestra emerged around 1967.
The new jùjú organisation developed from the musical environment already established by Gilbert Oduguwa’s highlife group. The name “Decency” had been associated with that earlier organisation and continued with the jùjú orchestra.
When the jùjú group was formed, Gilbert’s highlife band ceased operating. He joined the new orchestra as a talking-drum player, while Oladunni became the leader of the group.
Several years later, Gilbert withdrew from regular instrumental performance and concentrated on administration. Oladunni continued to lead the orchestra.
The partnership combined artistic leadership with practical management. Gilbert remained closely involved with the organisation, while Queen Oladunni Decency occupied the central performing and leadership role.
Leading a Professional Jùjú Band
By the late 1970s, the Unity Orchestra had been active for approximately a decade.
Running a professional orchestra required much more than appearing on stage. Musicians had to rehearse, travel, organise engagements and maintain discipline within a group made up of performers handling different instruments and vocal responsibilities.
The Unity Orchestra included musicians working in guitar, percussion and vocal roles. It functioned as a full performing ensemble within the Lagos entertainment scene.
Queen Oladunni Decency’s position was particularly notable because commercial jùjú music was heavily dominated by men. The most visible and commercially successful jùjú bandleaders of the period were male, while women were far less common in positions of instrumental and organisational leadership.
Decency became one of the important early women to occupy such a position in southwestern Nigerian jùjú music.
Women had long played significant roles in Yoruba musical and performance traditions, but Decency’s distinction lay in her leadership within a professional commercial jùjú orchestra and her public identification as a guitarist.
Family, Touring and Life Behind the Bandstand
Queen Oladunni Decency and Gilbert Oduguwa had four children.
Her mother, Abeke, helped care for the family when Decency was occupied with professional engagements.
This family support played an important role in sustaining a demanding musical career. Live entertainment involved evening appearances, rehearsals, travel, bookings and extended periods away from home.
For a mother raising four children, maintaining that schedule required a strong domestic support system.
Gilbert contributed musically and later administratively, while Abeke helped with childcare. Within that family structure, Oladunni was able to continue performing and directing her orchestra.
Her career therefore developed through a combination of personal ability, family cooperation and sustained professional work.
One of Nigeria’s Earliest Prominent Female Guitarists
Queen Oladunni Decency became widely remembered as one of Nigeria’s pioneering female guitarists.
During the 1960s and 1970s, she was publicly performing with the instrument while also leading her own jùjú organisation.
Her photograph from Chief Odunlami House in Anthony Village captures that history vividly. She stands at the microphone with her guitar, occupying the central position in the performance.
The Abi Morocco Photos archive provides an important visual record of the world in which she worked. Photographs from Lagos during this period preserve the clothing, instruments, social ceremonies and performance environments that shaped urban popular culture.
Decency’s image has become especially significant because it places a female instrumentalist visibly at the front of a professional Nigerian orchestra during a period when such a sight was uncommon.
Her Musical Legacy
Queen Oladunni Decency left behind a catalogue of recorded music, parts of which continue to circulate.
Her recordings belong to an important period in the development of Nigerian popular music, when jùjú expanded through live performance, records, radio exposure and the social events that formed a central part of Lagos entertainment culture.
Naming ceremonies, weddings, clubs and private celebrations were important performance spaces for popular musicians.
The Anthony Village photograph therefore shows Decency in one of the environments where jùjú music flourished as a living social tradition.
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Her career also broadens the familiar story of Nigerian popular music, which often concentrates on male stars.
Figures such as Ebenezer Obey and King Sunny Adé became internationally recognised representatives of jùjú, but the genre’s wider history included many other musicians who contributed to its development and popularity.
Queen Oladunni Decency belongs firmly within that broader history.
A Career Cut Short in 1978
Queen Oladunni Decency died in 1978, when she was about 28 years old.
Her death brought an early end to a career that had already established her as an unusual and important figure in Nigerian popular music.
By the time of her death, she had spent roughly a decade leading a jùjú organisation and had become recognised for her role as a singer, guitarist and bandleader.
Her relatively short life also helps explain why her name did not remain as familiar as those of musicians whose careers continued for several additional decades.
Yet the length of a career is not the only measure of historical importance.
During the years available to her, Decency established a professional orchestra, became publicly identified with guitar performance, worked within Lagos’s active entertainment culture and maintained a leadership position that few women occupied in commercial jùjú music at the time.
Rediscovery Through the Spirit of Lagos
Decades after her death, Queen Oladunni Decency gained renewed public visibility through the preservation and exhibition of the Abi Morocco Photos archive.
John Abe and Funmilayo Abe operated their Lagos photography practice from the 1970s until 2006. Their photographs documented studio clients, musicians, neighbourhood residents, ceremonies and many other aspects of urban life.
The exhibition Abi Morocco Photos: Spirit of Lagos, presented by Autograph in London, focused particularly on their work from the 1970s.
Among the photographs associated with the exhibition was the image of Queen Oladunni Decency performing at a naming ceremony in Anthony Village.
Lagos Studio Archives also compiled music connected with the exhibition, linking the photographs with recordings from the period.
Together, these materials help recreate part of the cultural environment in which Decency worked and allow modern audiences to encounter her both as a musician and as a visible participant in 1970s Lagos social life.
Conclusion
Queen Oladunni Decency was far more than a passing figure in the history of Nigerian music.
Sherifat Oladunni Oduguwa developed from playing maracas into a guitarist, singer and leader of the Unity Orchestra. Her jùjú organisation emerged around 1967 and remained active for roughly a decade.
Her career also reveals the network behind professional musical life. Her husband, Gilbert Oduguwa, contributed first as a musician and later as an administrator, while her mother, Abeke, helped with childcare.
The photograph of Decency with guitar in hand at an Anthony Village naming ceremony has become one of the clearest visual reminders of her place in Nigerian music history.
It captures a woman occupying a role that professional popular music of the period rarely offered women: instrumentalist, performer and leader at the centre of her own orchestra.
Her life was brief, but her work secured Queen Oladunni Decency an enduring place in the history of jùjú music and women’s participation in Nigerian popular culture.
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Author’s Note
Queen Oladunni Decency’s story expands our understanding of Nigerian popular music beyond the artists whose careers remained visible for decades. Her life brought together performance, family cooperation, professional leadership and the vibrant social culture of Lagos. Her image with guitar in hand remains a powerful reminder that women were not merely present in Nigeria’s musical history; some were already standing at the centre of the bandstand, directing musicians and shaping the sound of their era.
References
Radio/TV Times. Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, February 1978, p. 11. Profile of Sherifat Oladunni Oduguwa and the Unity Orchestra. National Library of Nigeria digital repository.
Omolaye, Bamidele Vincent. “The Emergence of Female Juju Artistes in Southwestern Nigeria: An Appraisal.” Journal of African Arts and Culture, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2021, pp. 22–43. University of Education, Winneba.
Autograph and Lagos Studio Archives. “Listen: Spirit of Lagos.” 31 October 2024. Documentation relating to Queen Oladunni Decency and the Abi Morocco Photos archive.
Autograph. Abi Morocco Photos: Spirit of Lagos. Exhibition, 31 October 2024 to 22 March 2025.
Omolu, Precious. “Queen Oladunni Decency: Nigeria’s First Female Guitarist.” Pulse Nigeria, 29 September 2026.
