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.