The egwu ota ensemble.
In Onitsha town in south-east Nigeria, the egwu-ota—a set of traditional musical instruments—occupies a pride of place. They are played exclusively for royalty, chief of which is the King, the Obi of Onitsha. It goes without saying, therefore, that whenever the Egwu-Ota ensemble is playing, then a blue blood is in the gathering.
“There is a message in those instruments when they are played that only the title holders can understand,” says Ezennia Chukka Ifejika, a titled indigene from Umu-Iyasele village and an authority on Onitsha customs.
The egwu-ota is a five-piece collection — four different types of drums and a gong — played by a six-man band. There is a drummer per drum; however, the gong, which dangles from a rope, is beaten on its opposing sides by two men who sit facing each other, knee to knee.
“It is the tradition; that is how it must be played,” says Ikechukwu Ikeomu, one-half of the gong pair, on the eve of the Ofala. “Each side of the gong produces a different type of note from the other.”
To see the Igwe and his chiefs dance to the melody of egwu-ota is to see one of Nigeria’s best kept cultural secrets. And the royals, aware that the eyes of the entire community are on them, never disappoint their audience.
Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe in ceremonial costume.
A good time to see the egwu-ota in action and listen to its multiple rhythms is during the annual Ofala Festival in October, when the Obi of Onitsha, HRM Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe, and his traditional cabinet dance to it publicly, the only time in the year when they do so together, and in the full glare of their subjects.
Aside from Igwe Achebe, only the higher echelon of red-cap chiefs known locally as Ndichies, six in all, own an egwu-ota ensemble, presented to them by the king himself. And they are put to use at very few functions outside of the Ofala Festival, like during the ‘second burial’ of titled Onitsha indigenes or when VIPs are visiting the kingdom.
“The Ofala is a celebration between the Igwe and the Ndichies; it is a celebration of the king surviving all the various societal issues to witness another Ofala celebration,” says Mortune Ikechukwu, a youth leader in Onitsha. “You will notice that they were all dancing. They hold their abana (spear) in their right hand and the horsewhip in their left hand. The dance is our traditional dance. It is also called egwu-ota.”
And because the Ofala is a special occasion of merry-making in the lives of all Onitsha indigenes, members of the established local age-grade groups, an important aspect of Onitsha’s sociological make-up, also dance to the tune of Egwu-Ota.
“Every Onitsha indigene, whether titled or commoner, comes to the palace on Ofala day to acknowledge the stool which Igwe Achebe occupies—all strata of society are represented,” says Nonso Arinze, a member of the Great Patriots of Onitsha. “It is our own way of preserving our culture. Anybody who is sensible enough should know that it is very important for them to preserve the local customs.”
The palace of the Obi Of Onitsha.
According to Ifejika, “Only the kings of Benin (Edo State) are able to dance to the royal drums called the egwu-Ota in the same way that the Onitsha royalty does.”
A similar instrument in Benin kingdom is called the Uvie (a wooden gong), and it is beaten at dawn to greet the king: “Are you awake? We greet you, we salute you…”
To the uninitiated, it is hard to imagine that the Benin Kingdom has any link whatsoever to Onitsha kingdom but history has it that many centuries ago, the Onitsha people, led by a warrior named [Eze] Chima, migrated from the Old Benin Kingdom, via Agboh (Delta State) and Idah (Kogi State) to settle in modern day Onitsha.
To date, that historical and filial relationship is evident in the present-day society that is Anambra, Edo and Kogi States. “There is not only a similarity in the manner of dressing but also in the manner of greeting,” says Ifejika.
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