Lokoja

Lokoja lies at the meeting of the Niger and Benue rivers, a junction that brought communities and trade routes together. The area was inhabited by different peoples before the arrival of Europeans; local accounts identify Nupe, Kupa, Kakanda and Oworo among those who settled in the wider confluence region. The rivers connected inland communities, while nearby hills provided land for farming and hunting. Before the nineteenth century its history belongs to the peoples and river networks of the confluence, where canoe traffic on the two rivers linked the Nupe and their neighbours with the lands downstream.