Ibadan

Ibadan grew out of the wars that followed the collapse of the Oyo Empire. In 1829 a mixed force of Yoruba warriors from Oyo, Ife and Ijebu made camp among the hills at a spot already known as Eba Odan, "by the edge of the grassland", and the camp never dispersed. It became a republic of war chiefs rather than a kingdom, governed by titled soldiers who rose by achievement rather than birth — an unusual arrangement that still shapes the city's chieftaincy, in which senior chiefs advance through the ranks to the throne.

Through the 19th century Ibadan was the dominant military power of Yorubaland, checking the southward advance of the Sokoto Caliphate's forces at the battle of Osogbo in the 1840s and extending its own control over neighbouring towns. The long Kiriji war ended in 1886 under British mediation, and Ibadan came under British protection in 1893.

The railway from Lagos reached the town at the beginning of the 20th century and turned it into the trading centre of the cocoa belt; Dugbe grew around the station. Ibadan became the capital of the Western Region, and the wealth of the cocoa years paid for the University College in 1948, Mapo Hall, the Western Nigeria television service — the first in Nigeria, launched in 1959 — and the Cocoa House in 1965. It remained the regional capital until the creation of Oyo State in 1976 and is now one of the largest cities in Nigeria, still sprawling outwards along its roads.

Ibadan is proudly Yoruba and proudly unpolished: a city of warriors' descendants that likes to contrast its plain speech with Lagos glamour. Its chieftaincy system is followed closely in the local press, since the succession of the Olubadan and the senior chiefs runs by a ladder of titles rather than by family line, and installations fill the old quarters with drumming and processions.

The University of Ibadan gave the city a central place in Nigerian intellectual life. Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo and J. P. Clark all passed through it, the Mbari Club of the 1960s brought writers and artists together here, and the university, the research institutes and a long publishing tradition keep a scholarly tone unusual in a Nigerian city.

Music runs through everyday life, particularly the praise-singing traditions: juju, fuji and the older apala and sakara styles are played at parties and owambe celebrations, where guests wear matching aso ebi cloth. Egungun masquerades still appear in the old compounds, and the festivals of the old quarters fill them with drumming and processions. Respect for elders is strict, greetings are elaborate and unhurried, and a visitor who learns a few Yoruba greetings will be met warmly.

Estimates put about 4.3 million people in the metropolitan area, which covers some 3,080 square kilometres and makes Ibadan the largest city in Nigeria by land area; the built-up area keeps spreading north and east along the main roads. Almost everyone is Yoruba, with Muslims and Christians in roughly equal numbers.

Trade is the main business: Bodija and Dugbe supply food and goods to a wide hinterland, and thousands of small workshops make furniture, clothing and building materials. Government offices, the university, the teaching hospital and research institutes such as the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture employ many more, and cocoa, cassava and maize from the surrounding farmland still pass through the city.

Life divides between the old quarters, where extended families share compounds of low houses with rusted iron roofs, and the newer estates — Bodija, Akobo, Jericho, Oluyole — of bungalows behind gates. Mornings start early, markets run from dawn, and the afternoon heat slows everything before evening trading picks up again. Power cuts are constant and generators are standard in shops and homes. Flooding along the small rivers that cross the city has caused serious damage more than once, and the cost of food and fuel dominates conversation.

Ibadan is the capital of amala, the dark, smooth swallow made from yam flour, and it is eaten here with a pair of soups poured together: ewedu, a green jute-leaf soup with a slippery texture, and gbegiri, a smooth soup of skinned beans, over which a red stew of peppers and palm oil is ladled with goat meat, beef, stockfish or cow skin called ponmo. Asking for amala "abula" means the whole combination in one bowl.

Beyond it, the city eats the wider Yoruba repertoire: pounded yam with egusi made from melon seeds, efo riro of leafy greens in palm oil, ofada rice from the forest belt served with a green pepper stew of assorted meats, and jollof rice at every celebration. Breakfast is akara bean fritters with pap, moin moin steamed bean pudding, or bread from the bakeries around Dugbe.

Roadside eating is good. Roasted plantain called boli is sold with groundnuts, maize is roasted over charcoal in season, and suya grills set up at dusk along the main roads. Palm wine comes in from the villages, and the local snack dodo Ikire, overripe plantain fried hard with pepper, is sold along the roads towards Osun State. Cold beer, zobo made from hibiscus and kunu from millet fill the bars.