 Agwu was born in Enugu, Nigeria, the daughter of two teachers; Jacob Ukeje Agwu from Nigeria, and Europa Lauretta Durosimi Wilson, was from Sierra Leone.In the Nigerian Civil War, her family supported the Biafran side, and their home in Umuahia was damaged by Nigerian bombers.In 1968, Agwu, her mother, and her siblings left Nigeria on the final evacuation plane taking Biafrans to a refugee camp in Equatorial Guinea, and were moved from there to camps in Liberia and Sierra Leone.