Skip to main content

The amazing Ekuku Cave, Okene

By Ismail M. Kabir

The Ekuku cave, located about 200 meters from Ekuku Dam in Okene is an amazing site.

Historically, it was a hideout for Ebira warriors but now provides shelter for farmers in the present day Ebira land. The entirely natural landscape is an awesome vista covers about 15 hectares, stretching through the Upogoro forests.

The beautiful valley of Uruku-Are, as the landscape is locally called is covered with tall palm trees and ever-green shrubs that reminds one of the spectacular view from the popular movie, Journey to the Mysterious Island.

When EbiraView team visited the cave some years back, three farmers were taking shelter after the long day of their usual non-mechanised tilling and cultivation. One of the farmers, an elder in his early 70s said that he has farmed in the area for about three decades.

"In the early 80s, I was returning from the farm with a heavy bunch of Banana. A white tourist suddenly appeared from the bushes with a camera hanging on his chest". The farmer narrated that the excited tourist requested a quick snapshot of him in his tattered farm clothes.

"I carried my bunch of Banana on the head he flicked the camera. To my utmost surprise, aboput a year later, he returned here with a copy of the picture that he later delivered to me as a gift".

From the farmer's story, the tourist was most likely one of the engineers that handled the Ekuku Water Dam project or guest of the present Ohinoyi of Ebira land, His Royal Majesty, Alhaji (Dr.) Ado Ibrahim who has a country home in Agasa, about 500 meters from the Ekuku Dam.

Like many other similar tourism potentials of Ebira land, the Ekuku cave is untapped but left to the mercy of grazing cattle...and wild animals.

The cave is a good shelter from rain and sunshine

Entrance to the cave

Corn roasting session with the farmers


The beautiful landscape

Ekuku cave, view from a distance

Ekuku Dam

Beautiful..isn't it?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ebira Names and their meaning, Names, Meanings, Sex

Asimi: If mankind will allow me the survival of this child. F Ajimituhuo: Spare me today till tomorrow, which day metaphorically continues till eternity (since tomorrow has no end). M Avidime: The initiator who work is subsequently perfected by those following him in life. M Asipita: A child of History. M Amewuru: The harbinger of confusion, or the man who causes chaos. M Adeku: Father of masquerade. M Adabara: Father of the  compound. M Adajinege: The tallest of them. M Adavize: Father is wealth. M Adeiza: Father of fortune/gift/kindness. M Adomuha: Father of able body man. M Adooro: The one that is a stumbling block Ahovi: A chief custodian of the traditional Oracle. M Aduvo: Father of hand. M Ajooze: The one standing on the way. M Adinoyi: The father of the multitude who serves as a protective umbrella shielding others in need of such protection. M Adaviruku: Name usually given to the heir of the family. M Ajinomo: In memory of Ebira war with the Fukanis where Ebi

The case of Ahmed Awela, Murtala (Eti Bobo) among other Ebira youths

Ismail M. Kabir, Lagos. Between controversial existence and a contentious exit. There are various sides to a story. For an event that happens with few or no significant eye witness, the news come in different versions; some partially correct, others completely cooked up. In some cases, such non-witnessed event pass round as rumour until eventually confirmed. Rumour it was, when a phone call from Okene announced the death of two famous Ebira youths! They were killed by the Police, reported the news. Being on a Sunday when nothing too special should ensue save for the usual church services and social functions, the news sounded as the most unexpected, as a matter of fact, incredible! The thought of losing such youths on an ordinary day like Sunday undoubtedly was the reason for the astonishment. Not a single person of Ebira origin, within or outside the soil would believe such shocker upon first hearing. Text messages, phone calls and of course physical enquiries lingered, all in an atte

The Obege legend

In the earliest generations when the art of magic was yet a myth to the people, there was born a boy into a family of hunters in the village of Eika - one of the six communities that comprised the ancestral groups. He was believed to have been born with a leaf in his hand and to the elders of then, that was prognostic of what he would be - a native healer. And had grown up performing wonders. His kinsmen were all hunters, they would deny the boy the opportunity to follow them hunting, purely on age ground - and he was really too young to go hunting in the forest. They would leave him in the house with the women as they set out on their hunting expedition. But they had meet the young Obege in the forest roasting a fair member of the forest’s game, all alone - and unarmed! The elders had to defer to this wonderful boy. Obege as an adult was more than human. His fame had spread all over the land: he was a healer of most seemingly incurable diseases, he was a rain maker, assumed more divin