Yewa

Before the creation of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate, Egba territory and people is bordered by the Ketu (Benin) in the West, the Lagos Colony in south, Ijebu in the east, and Oyo, Ibadan and Isoya near Ile Ife in the north.

Ẹgbado towns, most importantly Ipokia, Ado Odo, Ayetoro, Imeko Afon, Ilaro, and Igbogila, were established in the 11th to 18th century to take advantage of the slave trade routes from the inland Oyo empire to the coast at Porto-Novo.

The Ẹgbado later achieved a fragile independence after the fall of the Oyo kingdom, but were subject to frequent attacks from other groups such as the slave-raiding Dahomey (who seized, among others, Princess Sara Forbes Bonetta), and various tribes who wished to force open their own slave-trading routes to the sea.

By the 1860s the Egba abandoned the route because the British were actively using their formidable navy to try to abolish the slave trade.

This area became part of the British Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria in 1914, as Ẹgbado Division in Abeokuta Province.

There were complaints that the system of patronage and nepotism in Nigerian politics has caused the area to be neglected in terms of investment.