One person has been confirmed dead after soldiers, on Thursday evening, invaded the Palace of the Paramount Ruler of Okochiri Kingdom of Okrika local government area of Rivers state, HRM Ateke Tom.
Men, women, youths and palace chiefs took to the streets on Friday to protest the raid.
Chief of Staff of the Palace, Tamuno Akalokpo, confirmed the incident during the protest. He identified the victim as John Ogbu.
Akalokpo said: “It was around 3 and 4 pm yesterday afternoon, Soldiers and Police invaded our Royal Palace and destroyed many things and carried away some, they also killed one John Ogbu and the security dog, and also arrested some builders in the new Palace.
“We the people of Okochiri Kingdom are not happy with the unprovoked attack on our Monarch. He is not less than the Emir of Kano, Sokoto, the Oba of Yorubaland and other high Kings in the country without giving respect to the royal stool.
“We will not accept this, men of the Nigerian Army have desecrated the Palace of our King and the entire Kingdom, and we are not happy about it.
“If it is politically motivated, our King is not a politician. He embraces all the candidates of all the political parties contesting election in the state that came to visit him, he received all of them and gave his blessings to all of them, so why this?
“We want President Muhammadu Buhari to know about this and call the Army to order, we the Okrikans can no longer tolerate this anymore.
“We are calling on the Federal government (FG) to intervene and call for a dialogue to pay for damages done to us and our King in the attack,” he said.
Army spokesman, Ileyasu Aminu, is yet to respond to requests for comments.
