page_title: Ekiti people
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ekiti people / History
caption_attribution_description: Bowl with Figures, Artist: Olowe of Ise (c. 1875-c. 1938), Yoruba peoples, Ekiti region, Nigeria, Early 20th century, Wood, paint Sculptor to kings, Olowe of Ise is still honored among the Yoruba. His praise song says that he could carve iroko wood as though it was as soft as a gourd. The delicacy and dramatic composition of this bowl exemplify his talent, which embodies the standards of Yoruba art in iconography and proportions yet pushes them to their limits and redefines the rules. This prestige bowl, owned by someone of high status, likely held kola nuts, a traditional gesture of hospitality presented to guests and offered to deities during rituals.
context_page_description: The Ekiti people are one of the largest historical subgroups of the larger Yoruba people of West Africa, located in Nigeria. They are classified as a Central Yoruba group, alongside the Ijesha, Igbomina, Yagba and Ifes. Ekiti State is populated exclusively by Ekiti people; however, it is but a segment of the historic territorial domain of Ekiti-speaking groups, which historically included towns in Ondo State such as Akure, Ilara-Mokin, Ijare, and Igbara-oke. Irun, Ogbagi, Ese and Eriti in the Akoko region, as well as some towns in Kwara State, are also culturally Ekiti, although belong in other states today.
  The name Ekiti is a derivation of an earlier term, Okiti, which means "Hilly" in Yoruba, as characterized by the generally hilly terrain of the areas which the Ekiti inhabit.
context_section_description: Ekiti State was created on 1 October 1996 alongside five other states by the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, General Sani Abacha, GCON in a nation-wide broadcast to mark the 36th Independence anniversary of Nigeria. The State, carved out of Ondo State, covers the former twelve local government areas that made up the Ekiti Zone of old Ondo State.
  Ekiti as a nation within the Yoruba ethnicity has her progenitor in Oduduwa, as do most of the other major sub-ethnic divisions in Yorubaland. However, unlike the more centralized kingdoms and city-states to the West, the Ekitis traditionally lived in smaller, less politically centralized kingdoms that were largely independent of one another, although they traded amongst themselves and their ruling families often contracted dynastic marriages.
  The boundary of modern Ekitiland was shifted several times within a spate of 23 years without regard for the existing practice for identifying traditional boundaries in the African traditional society. Some of the major Ekiti settlements affected by the shift in boundaries for political and administrative purposes are as follows:
  Ekiti settlements transferred to Northern Nigeria in the colonial era.
  Otun (Awtun) Kingdom - Otun, Ekan, Aaye Ekan, Iloffa, Eruku, Idofin, Ilale, Erinmope, Ipetu, Orota, Ola.
  Obbo (Obo) Kingdom - Osi, Ora Aiyetoro, Ejiu.
  Omuo-Ekiti and its neighbors - Omuo, Oyin, Iro, Afin, parts of Egbe oba Kingdom.
  Eka Community - Erinmope Ekiti, Aare Opin, Isolo Opin, Isare Opin, Osi, Ikerin Opin, Oke Opin, Epe Opin, Owaatun Opin, Etan, Obbo-Ayegunle, Onno-Ile, Eruku, Ajuba, Isapa, Ejiu and others.
  Ekiti settlements transferred to the Ondo and Owo regions under colonial Nigeria.
  Akure - Akure Kingdom, Iju, Itaogbolu, Igbara Oke, Ijare, Ilara-Mokin, Ibule etc.
  Akoko West - Irun, Ogbagi, Ese, Eriti.
  Ekiti used to exist as sixteen principal kingdoms. Each had a senior Oba superintending over its territory. There was never a centralized single political unit among the Ekiti people. Even though the Oore of Otun Ekiti - a town to the north of the Ekiti cultural area - was considered the most senior of the Ekiti kings from the advent of the British occupation of Ekitiland to the later end of Nigeria's colonial rule, the senior Ekiti Obas of Akure (Deji), Ado (Ewi) and Ikere (Ogoga) presided over the largest towns, and Akure was the Ekiti town with the closest links to Benin.
caption: Yoruba bowl from the Ekiti cultural area
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