Where to Stay in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State

What is Ado-Ekiti known for?

The Ewi's town doubles as a state capital. Ado Ekiti heads the Ekiti central senatorial district, and its offices sit near a cluster of campuses: Ekiti State University, the privately owned Afe Babalola University, and the Federal Polytechnic founded in 1977. Trade carries the rest.

Yams, cassava, grain, and tobacco reach its markets from the farms around, cotton comes in for weaving, and stations from Radio Ekiti to Nigeria Television Authority broadcast across the state.

What are the main landmarks in Ado-Ekiti?

Fajuyi Memorial Park is the city's one gated set-piece. It keeps the tomb and statue of Adekunle Fajuyi, first military governor of the former Western Region, who was killed in the revenge coup of 1966 after refusing to give up Aguiyi Ironsi, and the grounds also hold games, outdoor recreation, and a live band after dark. The rest is working ground.

The Federal Polytechnic campus on Ado-Ikare Rd and the trading floors at Mojeree market and Fayose Market draw people on their own terms.

What is the history of Ado-Ekiti?

The founding runs through one restless prince. Ewi Awamaro, son of Ewi Apa Biritikolu, left Ile-Ife with his father and his uncle Oranmiyan, and where Oranmiyan went on to Benin as its Oba, the rest of the party turned toward Ita Orogun after a short stay with Oloba at Oba-Ile, in what is now Akure. The Benin forests held them first.

Disputes among their people split the two groups, so Biritikolu looked westward for a new home and settled at Utamodi, also called Oke Papa, where he and one of his sons reigned. Awamaro kept moving. He paused at Udoani, known as Ido Ani, then at Agbado, where the elders who stayed behind to rest gave the settlement the name Agba Ado, Elders' Camp, which the town of Agbado-Ekiti carries still.

Ulesun was the end of that road. The settlement Awamaro reached is the Ado-Ekiti of the present, and the Ewi title he carried has descended unbroken to Rufus Aladesanmi III, who succeeded Samuel Adeyemi George-Adelabu I in 1990. An older tie sits inside the name.

Yoruba speakers called a person of Edo origin Ado, which is why princes and kings drawn from the Benin Empire into Yoruba country were styled Oba Ado, and the form Edo-Ekiti stands behind the modern spelling. Acculturation did the rest over the following centuries. The Ekiti are counted a sub-ethnic group of the Yoruba, and the Benin thread survives mainly in the town's name and in its royal line.

Where is Ado-Ekiti?

Drainage shapes this ground more than relief does. Ado-Ekiti spreads over roughly 293 square kilometres of tropical country in Ekiti State, and the flooding that follows a heavy wet season has put crews on more than a 14-kilometre stretch of waterways, dredging channels and clearing drains through one quarter after another. Water threads the town.

Farmland presses in from every side, feeding the yams, cassava, and grain that reach the traders on Ajilosun Street.

What is the climate of Ado-Ekiti?

September is the wettest month of the year here. Rain holds from the middle of February to the middle of November, the cloudy spell running some nine months against barely three bright ones, and December comes out both the clearest and the driest month on the calendar. March is the hottest.

August sits at the bottom of a cool run lasting from June through October, and the window from early November to late February is the one that suits open-air days in Ado Ekiti.

How do you get to Ado-Ekiti?

Shared cars and buses do the work. Terminals in Lagos, Ibadan, Osogbo, and Akure all send vehicles toward Ado Ekiti, and the last leg comes in on one of the named approaches: Ado-Ikare Rd, the Ado-Iworoko-Ifaki Rd, or Ado-Ilawe Road. Every listed approach is by road.

Bolt operates inside the city, so an address out on Adebayo or along New-Iyin Rd can be reached without arranging a driver first.