Hoodlums have attacked the Palace of Etsu Lokoja, Emmanuel Dauda-Shelika, the Nyamkpa fourth, and burnt his car as well as some valuable properties in his residence.
The palace which is located at New Layout, Lokoja the Kogi state capital, was on Saturday allegedly attacked by hoodlums at about 1:00 am while the monarch narrowly escaped by scaling the fence.
The attack follows the plans by Nupe Natives of the Lokoja Development Union to host the second Edition of Nupe Natives end of the year event, tagged: “Lokoja ’24 Nupe Cultural Fiesta” slated to be held on December 21, 2024.
The event was aborted due to the unfortunate attack when many Nupe natives from neighbouring states started arriving on the eve of the occasion.
Narrating his ordeal, the monarch said, it was around midnight that he had a big bang on his door that woke him up to check through the window, wondering what could have happened.
According to him, he suddenly saw wildfire coming out of his car as it had been set ablaze by hoodlums.
He said, “I knew it was an attack on the palace, and therefore I could not come out because of fear of being attacked. So, I managed to come out through the back door and scaled the fence to escape for my life.
“When I came out to the road and realized that all my neighbours in the community were on the ground trying hard to quench the fire, but unfortunately the car was burnt down completely”.
The Royal Father appealed to the government and security agencies to investigate the cause of the attack and bring the perpetrators and their sponsors to justice.
While also appealing to the Nupe natives in Lokoja, to avoid any form of reprisal, he charged them to continue to remain peaceful, and law-abiding and allow government and security agencies to conduct thorough investigations on the incident.
He noted that the Executive Chairman of Lokoja Local Government Area Abdullahi Adamu and his security apparatus came for an on-the-spot assessment that Saturday morning as well as the Police and other security agents.
Speaking further, the traditional ruler said that Lokoja is traditionally Nupe and they were planning to have the annual Nupe Cultural Festival that they had last year.
According to him, they sent letters of invitation to all the relevant stakeholders including the media, and security agencies such as the Police, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), and Department of State Services (DSS) as well as extending invitations to all other ethnic groups in Lokoja such as the Ebira, Yoruba, Oworo, Igala, Igbo communities to come and celebrate with them.
He pointed out that a similar invitation was extended to Maigari of Lokoja, the Chairman of Lokoja Local Government Traditional Council, to come and be the Special Royal Father of the day.
“But to our surprise, rather than accepting our invitation, the Maigari faulted it, and wrote back to us, saying, ‘Our letter lacks royal courtesy’ because we didn’t include the Chairman, Lokoja Traditional Council in our letter.
“The Maigari also went ahead in his letter to say that there is nothing like ‘Etsu Lokoja’. So, we wonder how will you say there is no Etsu Lokoja when we have existed even before the colonialists came, and we have our own way of administering ourselves.
“We were the earlier settlers here, and it has always been Etsu Lokoja before the colonialists came. In an attempt to set up their own thing, the colonialists put together this arrangement, and today we have a Maigari. But we have no problem with that at all because we have lived together peacefully for many years,” the traditional ruler said.
He stressed that the government was aware of the efforts and structures that the leadership of Nupe natives in Lokoja had put in place to facilitate the government’s recognition of the Etsu Lokoja stool, to be able to administer themselves freely as an ethnic group.
“The aborted cultural fiesta was never a coronation ceremony as it was being interpreted in some quarters, but a cultural celebration because the issue of coronation is very mundane.
“The most important thing for us is the installation of Etsu Lokoja which we did on January 23, 2024. We further did a public re-enactment of that installation again on July 27, 2024, on the mountain which was the root of Lokoja, and will send a letter of reminder to the government on the need to recognize and grade Etsu stool.
“We also have a compendium of all our activities that we have done which was also sent to the State Government as well as all the security agencies. We are making sure as law-abiding people to follow principles and due process because we are not violent but very intelligent and developers that add value when we have the freedom to do so.
“The government has identified Lokoja as a Cosmopolitan city and that is why they have chosen to identify, recognize and grade certain ethnic groups including the Ohi Anebira of Lokoja, Onu Igala of Lokoja, Oba Yoruba of Lokoja, Maigari Lokoja for Hausa, as well as Etsu Lokoja,” he said.
In his remark, the National President, Nupe Natives of Lokoja Union, Abubakar Ndashite, said the event scheduled for Saturday, December 21, was a celebration of Nupe Cultural heritage and not any form of coronation as being insinuated from some quarters.
He expressed his displeasure over the aborted cultural event, noting that the union had expended so much for the festival and urged the government to bring perpetrators to book.
