The history of old Ilaro was not written only in royal palaces, wars and the names of kings. It was also written in the farms.
For a settlement built around agriculture, farming was not simply an occupation. It was part of survival. The harvest fed families, sustained communities and helped determine whether a settlement could endure difficult times.
It was in this world that Ilaro tradition remembers a king named Ashadi Agule, a ruler associated with a significant change in the way farming was viewed in the community.
He looked towards the farm.
But his interest was not limited to producing food.
He saw the farm as a place where people could work, learn discipline and contribute to the prosperity of the kingdom.
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The king who encouraged his people to farm
According to Ilaro oral tradition, Ashadi Agule became known for encouraging the people to take farming seriously.
This was important in a society where agriculture was closely connected to everyday life. A community could not depend entirely on hunting, trade or warfare. It needed people who could cultivate the land and produce food.
The king therefore promoted farming among his people and encouraged agricultural work.
The idea was simple but powerful.
A stronger community needed productive people.
And productive people needed land.
The farm consequently became more than a place where crops were planted. Under the memory of Ashadi Agule, it became part of the king’s wider effort to organise his people and strengthen Ilaro.
When the king’s farm became a place of punishment
This is where the story becomes particularly unusual.
Ilaro oral tradition remembers that Ashadi Agule introduced a form of punishment in which people who broke certain laws were sent to work on the king’s farm.
Instead of simply being confined or publicly punished, offenders could be made to work.
They would labour on the royal farmland.
The punishment carried an important message. Wrongdoing did not only bring consequences for the individual. The offender could also be required to contribute through labour to the community and the authority of the king.
The farm therefore became a place of discipline.
It was productive punishment.
And from this memory grew the association with Oko Oba, literally, the king’s farm.
Oko Oba, the farm that belonged to the king
The expression Oko Oba carries a simple meaning in Yoruba.
Oko means farm.
Oba means king.
Together, Oko Oba means the king’s farm.
But behind those two words is a much larger picture of how royal authority and agriculture were connected in old Ilaro.
The king possessed authority over the kingdom, but the land was also central to that authority. A royal farm could provide food, employment and agricultural production, while also serving as a place where people were compelled to work as a consequence of wrongdoing.
For those who lived under such a system, the king’s farm was therefore not an ordinary farm.
It represented royal power.
From punishment to productivity
There was another side to the practice.
Sending offenders to work on the farm meant that punishment could produce something useful.
Instead of allowing a person who had violated the rules of the community to remain idle, the person could be put to work.
The crops would still grow.
The farm would still produce.
The kingdom would still benefit.
It was a practical form of discipline in a society where labour was essential to survival.
The story also reveals something about how people in earlier Yoruba communities understood responsibility. Work was not merely a way of earning money. Agricultural labour was directly connected to food, survival and the wellbeing of the wider community.
Ashadi Agule and a changing Ilaro
The story of Ashadi Agule belongs to a larger period in Ilaro’s history when the relationship between the town and the old Oyo political system was changing.
Ilaro had been established within the wider sphere of Oyo influence, and the town’s traditional institution retained strong connections to Oyo.
For generations, the Olu of Ilaro was traditionally connected to the Alaafin of Oyo. Local historical traditions remember an arrangement in which an Olu could rule Ilaro for three years before returning to Oyo, while another royal arrangement followed.
That system eventually changed.
Oba Asade Agunloye, who became Olu in 1812, is remembered in Ilaro history as the first Olu who did not return to Oyo after three years. His long reign marked an important stage in the development of Ilaro’s independent traditional authority.
Against this background, stories of earlier rulers and royal officials such as Ashadi Agule preserve memories of a kingdom where leadership was not only about succession. It was also about organising the people and making the settlement productive.
The farm was part of the kingdom’s strength
It is easy today to hear the expression Oko Oba and imagine nothing more than a piece of farmland owned by a king.
But in the world of old Ilaro, land had greater significance.
A farm could feed a household.
A collection of farms could feed a community.
A royal farm could support the palace and its activities.
And agricultural labour could be used to maintain order.
This made farming part of the political and social structure of the kingdom.
The king who looked towards the farm was therefore looking towards one of the foundations upon which his kingdom depended.
A story preserved beyond the palace
Many historical memories survive not because they were written down at the time they happened, but because generations continued to tell them.
The story of Ashadi Agule and Oko Oba belongs to this world of Ilaro’s remembered past.
It is a story about a ruler who saw value in agriculture, a community whose survival depended heavily on the land and a system of punishment that turned wrongdoing into forced labour.
It also offers a glimpse into an older understanding of leadership.
A king was expected not merely to sit on a throne.
He was expected to make the kingdom work.
What Oko Oba tells us about old Ilaro
The history behind Oko Oba is ultimately a story about more than farming.
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It reveals the importance of agriculture in the development of Ilaro, the power of the traditional institution and the ways in which rulers could use labour and land to maintain order.
Ashadi Agule is remembered as a king who encouraged his people to farm and whose royal farm became associated with punishment for offenders.
That memory has survived because the idea itself was striking.
A person could offend the king and end up working on the king’s farm.
The farm fed the kingdom.
The farm strengthened the kingdom.
And, in this story, the farm could also discipline the kingdom.
Author’s Note
The story of Ashadi Agule and Oko Oba offers a glimpse into an older Ilaro where farming was central to survival, royal authority reached into everyday life and agricultural labour could serve both productive and disciplinary purposes. Beyond the story of one king, it reminds us that the history of Ilaro was shaped not only by wars, rulers and political changes, but also by the land its people cultivated and the work through which communities sustained themselves.
References
Samuel Johnson, The History of the Yorubas, CSS Bookshops, 1921.
Robert S. Smith, Kingdoms of the Yoruba, University of Wisconsin Press, 1969.
Kola Folayan, “Egbado to 1832: Birth of a Dilemma,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, 1967.
Ilaro traditional historical accounts on the history of the Olu institution, Ilaro settlement and ruling houses.
Oral historical accounts concerning Ashadi Agule, Oko Oba and the history of Ilaro.
