Okobonyi was a call to greatness and high status answered only by choice. The obonyi dance - a dance for warriors, was a dance for great men who had travailed in their land and outside their community, but brought victory and praises home. The call - oku, was a call to put one's name in the sands of time. It did not start yesterday. The dance of warriors and achievers who had gone to strange lands to fight and come back alive had always resonated in the hearts of the people. Men who had fought with the living and the spirits and survived the battle had always come back home to dance to the rhythm of obonyi. Those who went to war danced to the rhythm of okobonyi orchestra, before and after the war. Okobonyi was so powerful as it was spiritual that at the sound of its music in the air, great men and women of Elugwu-Ezike understood the message behind the rhythm.
The message the rhythm of the music passed across was simple: 'First kill before dancing.'
Elugwu-Ezike, like Nsukka and Obukpa people, would dance like enraged lions, with their eyes piercing, roaming up and down under the spiritual forces evoked by the music. Men danced with the skulls of the enemies they had killed, drinking from the skulls to show that they were warriors. It was expected of a warrior to come home with the head of an enemy, or to capture somebody alive and keep same as a slave. Okobonyi was as old as Elugwu-Ezike and as long as Adada river.
When the warriors of the land joined their ancestors, okobonyi music was played and opu, elephant tusks blown to bury such person. The person blowing the opu would be calling the name of the dead person while the sons danced. The warriors also danced to the rhythm with swords to show that, of a truth, a warrior had departed from the earth, that a vacuum had been created. When obonyi music was played at the burial of a warrior, it turned out to a fight of words, mba obonyi, at which event other warriors gathered to narrate and display their sojourn, battles fought and won, wild animals killed, slaves captured or bought, territories conquered and things done to keep the image of their communities. During the fight of words, female men who dreaded wars and greatness had nothing to say and did not participate.
"Mba obonyi is for great men who have seen the dead and the spirit," Ezocha would always tell his relatives and whosoever cared to listen. Yes! Okobonyi was synonymous to greatness and relevance - it was a call to responsibility and defense of one's community. Okobonyi was not a call to be a traitor and the call was never made to traitors too. It was a call to men who had chosen the path of greatness and not a call to feeble minded men who had chosen the path of least resistance and settled for cowardice.
Okobonyi was a call that Ezocha Ugwoji decided to answer in his sojourn and travail.
Ikenna, one of Ezocha's servants, had ridden his horse all the way from Akpaolisa hut, the hillside village of Ezike Oba. Ezocha's countenance was somewhat strange. This was because he was used to setting out on a journey of this kind without mentioning his destination to anybody, not even his wives; especially in the event of war, or when he had dealings with outsiders that he didn't want to disclose to his household or even extended family. Although as his favourite servant, Ikenna, got a glimpse of where he was headed, he still had to follow him, alongside his grandchildren, to be sure. He had instructed his grandchildren to follow him and get his ancient loincloth though. That day was phenomenal: Ezocha literally brought along with him his staff; an action that was rarely seen in him. Ikenna followed him from behind, riding his own horse in such a way that his master would not notice he was following him; nevertheless, he couldn't have gotten closer to him. His horse was no match to that of his master; not after it stepped on a trap set for an elephant by hunters at Obollo.
On getting to the mountain connecting Elugwu-Ezike and the neighbouring community, he found his master's horse wandering around a big stone naturally buried beneath the surface of the earth at the boundary of the mountain and came down. Ezocha's grand children were there too. Yawning out loud, for nothing had gone into his mouth that day, he mounted the horse and rushed to the naturally hewn stone where the smoke was generated, and stood still in awe. He had watched his master from afar. The last Eke market day, he had visited this place with his master, but that stone was smooth and had no inscription or mark on it. Today was different, surprisingly: on the surface was the footprint of a man, showing imprints of the rings worn on the feet. The endpoint of the rock cliff had the mark of his staff.
"Ezocha!" Ikenna exclaimed.
Ezocha had disappeared into thin air. This wasn't a transmogrification, it was a total disappearance and lifting from the earth towards the sky. How possible could that be? It had never been heard in the history of the people under the rule of the ancient Idah; it had never been spoken of in the history of the sons of Ideke Nsukka, neither had it been talked about by the other tribes or nations close to Elugwu-Ezike and Igala people — that a man prepared fire, matched on a stone and disappeared through the smoke, leaving footprints.
The circumstance surrounding Ezocha's birth was very remarkable, quite lovely under critical watch; from the voluntary marriage of his mother, Ugwoji to Ogili, his father, under slavery, to his rise to influence and affluence. This proved the rumored saying that he was a special child and destined for great things. Maybe fate was at work.