[4] Abẹokuta lies in fertile country of wooded savanna, the surface of which is broken by masses of grey granite.

[5] Palm oil, lumber, natural rubber, yams, rice, cassava, maize, cotton, fruits, and shea butter are the chief articles of trade.

[2] Local industries include but are not limited to fruit canning plants, plastics, breweries, sawmills, and an aluminum products factory.

According to The History of the Yorubas by Samuel Johnson, Eso Ikoyi Chiefs in the retinue of the first Alake of the Egba joined him in founding a new community—the confederacy of towns that became known as Orile Egba—in the forest after they left the nascent Oyo empire in around the 13th century AD.

The city was founded because of its strong defensive physical position by refugees trying to protect themselves against slave raiders from Dahomey, who were trying to benefit from the war.

Refugees displaced by the collapse of Oyo joined with the Ijebu in their war against the Owu in southern Yorubaland, which had broken out around the same time.

Following the fall of Owu in around 1822, the leading Ife and Ijebu generals returned to their respective homes, but the rest of the armies that had allied with the Oyo refugees were invited by the Ijebus to Ipara, which they made their headquarters for further attacks against several towns in the region.

This group then turned their attention to waging war with the Egba, a loose confederacy of towns that had been established by Yoruba migrants in the 13th century and were spread throughout the forested land between Ipara and Ibadan.

Fearing Ife reprisal, most of the Egba population withdrew as a group to an encampment about 3 or 4 miles distant on the other side of the Ona River.

Here they enlisted Sodeke to be their leader and migrated to a hilly area known as Olumo Rock, where they established the town of Abeokuta around 1830 at what was then a small farming village.

[2][22] The 1860s also saw problems arise with the Europeans, namely the British in Lagos, which led to the Egba first closing trade routes, followed by the expulsion of missionaries and traders in 1867.

[2] Between 1877 and 1893 the Yoruba Civil Wars occurred, and Abeokuta opposed Ibadan, which led the king or alake of the Egba to sign an alliance with the British governor, Sir Gilbert Carter.

[2][22] In 1918, an uprising took place, the Adubi War, which was related to the levying of taxes and the policy of indirect rule by Sir Frederick Lugard, the British Governor-General.

(As a colonel in the Biafra War, Obasanjo carried out the decisive operation to defeat the secessionist region of Biafra, was later Chief of Staff under dictator Murtala Mohammed, escaped assassination by mistaken identity during a coup, became dictator himself, and led his country into democracy; was on death row under Sani Abacha and then democratically elected twice as the first president of the Fourth Republic, which still exists today.)