Lost history · 1700s to 1917 · Mixed
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A prince who lost a crown to his younger brother, villages hunted by raiders, a hill hideout, and a line of kings who never died in their beds. How Okeho became one town, and how it came home in 1917.
Okeho is a town in Kajola Local Government Area of Oyo State, sitting in a valley with hills and mountains all around it. Its very name, The Nation newspaper explained in 2017, means a place between mountains and hills. That year the town held a nine-day party to mark a hundred years since its people came back to live where they live now. The story of how they got there begins with a man who walked away from a crown.
He was a crown prince of Ilaro, a town in what is now Ogun State. His name is given as Ojo Arona, and the present king of Okeho, Oba Rafiu Osuolale Mustapha, called him Ojo Orona. He expected to be king of Ilaro. Instead his younger brother was made the Olu of Ilaro. "He left Ilaro because he could not be made king," the Onjo said. "His younger brother was made the Olu Ilaro and he left the town in annoyance."
On his travels the prince met people who later became his chiefs. He first settled at a place called Omogudu and later at Oke-Ijemu. He could not have known it, The Nation wrote, but leaving home in anger was the start of a life that would put his name in history.
He was not alone in that part of the country. Around him were about ten other communities, each with its own head. One source quoted by the paper says Old Okeho was founded in 1750 by villages including Ijo, Bode, Olele, Isale Alubo, Isemi, Imoba, Gbonje, Oke-Ogun and Pamo. The ruler of Ijo carried the title Onjo, and in Okeho's telling it was the royal blood of the Ilaro prince that the neighbours would later rally around. The dates in the different tellings do not line up neatly, and the king's own account, as printed, gives a founding date that seems to have lost some digits on the way. What every version agrees on is the order of events: a royal settler among a cluster of villages, and then trouble.
The trouble came from outside. Fulani and Dahomey warriors attacked the villages again and again, and people were driven from their homes. They all had the same problem, and in the end they found the same answer.
The Onjo of Ijo at the time, Arilesere, also called Arojojoye, called the other communities together. In the present king's telling, he advised them to form one united town and to move to a safer place. According to The Nation's source, the villages joined together in 1830. They gave up some of their own honours and freedoms to do it, and Arilesere became the first Onjo of the united Okeho. The ten communities moved to Okeho-Ahoro, a hilly spot hidden among mountains where raiders could not easily find them. It worked. The Fulani and Dahomey fighters were held off, and the town was fairly safe through those wars.
The paper credits the leadership and royal blood of the Ilaro line with drawing the neighbours together. But peace from outside did not bring peace inside. Once the wars ended, the present king said, chiefs and Onjo began to quarrel. Some chiefs believed they also had a right to the top stool. Kings were killed or sent into exile, and the kingmakers began installing whoever they pleased.
The Nation put it starkly. In Old Okeho, no Onjo died peacefully or of natural causes. They were either killed or died in mysterious circumstances. It is a grim record for a town founded on the idea of standing together.
The last known Onjo of Old Okeho was Owolabi Olukitibi. He was installed in 1916, and on 19 October that year he was assassinated. His death set off a serious civil war among the communities. By then the British ran the country, and the crisis caught their attention. To stop what was described as the senseless killing of rulers and their supporters, the colonial government arrested the leaders of the uprising and executed them.
The Divisional Officer of Oyo Province, Captain Ross, then stepped in with the help of the Alaafin of Oyo. He told all the communities to move back to their former places, the site where Okeho stands today. The move began in 1916 and was finished by October 1917. A new agreement was made, and it kept the Onjo as head of all the joined towns. That year, the paper said, marked the end of the bitter battles among them.
A century on, Okeho counts fifteen communities: Ijo, Isia, Bode, Ogan, Olele, Isale Alubo, Isemi, Asin, Imoba, Gbonje, Oke-Ogun, Pamo, Sangote, Ogbinte and Ojete. Fourteen are led by Baales and chiefs, with the Onjo over all.
In 2017 they danced for nine days. At the close, a history of the town, Okeho in History, by Prof. Segun Gbadegesin, the Asiwaju of Okeho, was launched at LA School, Olele. He paid to publish it himself and gave the community 1,000 copies, with the money from sales meant for the Onjo's palace, classrooms for a school of health technology, and a site for a National Open University branch. The planning chairman, Moyo Ajekigbe, said it was a chance for young people who had only met on Facebook to finally meet in person.
The king, a retired Customs officer, spoke plainly about what holds a town like this together. "Yes, it was 11 different towns that destiny forged together to become one," he said. People would not share one religion or one party, he added, and they must respect that. But where there is love, unity will thrive. For a town whose old kings so rarely died in peace, that was not a small thing to ask.
