Awori

The Awori were a Yoruba subgroup whose homeland lay among the creeks and lagoons of the Guinea coast. Tradition held that their leader Olofin guided them down the Ogun River to Isheri, their earliest centre.

As lagoon trade grew, Awori settlements shifted from Ebute-Metta to Iddo and then to Èkó, a fishing and farming hamlet. Portuguese traders visited the coast from about 1472, drawing the lagoon towns into Atlantic commerce. In the sixteenth century the kingdom of Benin brought Èkó under its control and installed obas.