Childhood

Theme: Price of loyalty

After the maternity alarm screaming ‘push’, came a healthy chubby looking Nonso. The first issue of Chief Ezenwa’s family after 10 years of the ‘Marry another wife’ anthem. Masked faces wearing smiles marched to celebrate the beginning of a new era. Among the visitors was Mazi Okonkwo, who had always wished the Ezenwa’s never get to be called parents, so the kingship entitlement will be taken away from them when the king dies, and his lineage can start to become the Ezeburugu 1 of the Oginapogi empire.

18 years later, Nonso was well known all over the nine Azubuike kingdoms for his proverbial skill. A trait which is believed to be one for the old and wise, turned out to be that of a child. He settled town disputes, performed in great gatherings of kings and already took one chieftain title. Mazi Okonkwo’s son, Ifeanyi was his best friend, to the displeasure of his father. Together, the boys hunted for birds, rehearsed spoken work performances, and to the amusement of the town, they were about getting married to the beautiful twin daughters of the Nwabugu family from the neighbouring village, on the same day. Few years after their glamorous marriage, the king died and it was time for the next Ezeburugu to be crowned.

Scent of red earth engulfed the palace, as beats from the Ogene drum met the waist and beads of the five virgin girls dancing. Mortars reignited friendship with pestles, as varieties were what soups had to offer. The day had come for the new King to ascend his throne. Ifeanyi was present wearing a smile on his numerous titles, but without a wife. He divorced his wife after she was caught conniving with his father to kill Nonso on one of his numerous visits to the Ifeanyis. After fruitless efforts by Nonso to reconcile his friend’s marriage, the virgins dance was specially requested by the king for his friend to pick a new wife, as he was about to be named the second in command to the king. The two friends worked together for the prosperity of the town. Nonso became the head king of the nine villages at the age of thirty five, the youngest to achieve that feat. His friend was left at Ezeburugu to see to the affairs of the town, as the king, and until the age of ninty-five when Nonso joined his ancestors, forty, forty five and six years years after his father, mazi Okonkwo, and king Ifeanyi passed on respectively, history will forever be kind to both of them as one of the loyal and greatest men to sit on the throne.

Tomide Abdul