Eruwa

Eruwa which means 'pieces of yam are available here’ is a town and the headquarters of Ibarapa East Local Government Area of Oyo State, in South West Nigeria.

Understand
Eruwa is quite significant in so many aspects especially because it is the headquarters of the Ibarapa which is made up of seven towns namely Eruwa, Lanlate, Igboora, Idere, Ayete, Tapa and Igangan. It is about 72 km south west of Ibadan and 60 km north east of Abeokuta. Eruwa derived its name from the way in which hawkers displaded and traded roasted yams to the northern caravans who constantly congregated in the town.

The founders of Eruwa were of Oyo origin. The leader of the area was Obaseeku who was a prince, a bare hunter and a powerful medicine man.The area is characterised by many hills. Eruwa is governed by a Monarch whose recognised traditional title is Eleruwa. This title simply means the owner/ruler of Eruwa. The monarch administers the town with the assistance of his Chiefs and ward heads who have the traditional title known as Baale. In the pre-colonial days, Eruwa was recognised by the Alaafin of Oyo as the leading town in Ibarapa district and this status continued until the colonial era.

Eruwa's most recent population was estimated to be 9,110 in 1934. In 1951 when Nigeria had its first national headcount, its population was above 11,000 but in 1963, the population rose to 26,963. Eruwa has a total number of six electoral wards.



Get in
Eruwa is bounded in the north by Iseyin, in the east by Ibadan and in the south by Ogun state. Eruwa is in the grass savannah with a number of streams flowing through it. These streams include Baba Ode, Oluweri, Agboti, Ogboogbo, and Ojuregbin Olusoji. The main outstanding geographical feature of the town is the chain of hills surrounding it. Prominent among these hills are Adoko, Akolu, Andoro, Apanpa, Eetaka, Ilewu, Obaseeku, Ofere, Ogodo, Ojoko, Okele, Oluweri and Wee-wee-onigba-poro.

Get around
Just like most part of the country, Eruwa has a tropical wet and dry climate, with a lengthy wet season, from early March to late October and relatively constant temperatures throughout the course of the year. From November to February forms the town's dry season, during which it experiences the typical West African harmattan. The occupational choice of the people is mainly determined and influenced by the geographical location of the town.

See
Adeseun Ogundoyin Polytechnic is in Eruwa. It was established as a satellite campus of the Polytechnic Ibadan on Tuesday 19 January 1982 with eighty-eight students and was later converted into an autonomous Polytechnic in 2014. There are also public and private primary and secondary schools located in the town. The first secondary school in Eruwa is Obaseeku High School which was established on February 28, 1964. Eruwa also has administrative rest houses and native court which were built as far back as the 1915.

Buy
Agricultural production is basically the indigenous economic activity of the people of Eruwa. This encompasses farming, fishing, hunting and animal husbandry. Other financial activities include manufacturing and trading. The main crops cultivated in Eruwa include yam, cassava, guinea corn, maize, pepper, tobacco, cotton and melon seeds. Cocoa, kola nuts, oranges as well as palm-trees are also grown in the area.

There are community markets in Eruwa such as Ogo Oluwa Supermarket And Medicine Store, a grocery store located at Ibadan - Eruwa Rd, opposite New Eruwa Baptist Church, Eruwa, Ojaoba market, and the most popular Anko market which is the most popular market in the area

Eat
There are a couple of nice eateries and restaurants in Eruwa available for visitors and travellers to eat sumptuous meal. Some of them are E.G Biofort Restaurant situated opposite first Baptist church, Eruwa, P.M Place, Eruwa, Mama Deola Food Canteen, Climax-Kott Restaurant located at Alhaji Ogundele Jimoh's compound, opposite Adeseun Ogundoyin Polytechnic, Eruwa among so many others.

Sleep
Eruwa has a number of affordable accommodation where visitors and travellers can take shelter on arrival. Some of the most prominent ones are: Favourite Guest House sited at 1 City Of Peace, Ido Eruwa Road, Opp Akufo Farm Settlement, Ibadan, Makoni Hotels located at Km 7, Eleyele- OloguneruIdo Eruwa, Eleyele Ibadan, Inalende, Ibadan, Royal Palace Hotel situated at Km 6, Ibadan- Eruwa Road, Kusela, Inalende, Ibadan and Osaka Japan Quarantine Hotel amongst others.

Stay safe
Generally, Eruwa is religious and secular town with a high degree of freedom of worship. It is noteworthy that both Muslims and Christians and even secular worshippers co-exist peacefully.

Connect
You would most likely find reliable coverage of the 2G/3G mobile networks in most locations in Eruwa, but the 4G network might be unreliable. Signal strength might diminish further away from the town center, and you might occasionally experience a network outage for all or some of the mobile phone service providers in the remote areas of the town. Different networks tend to be more stable and reliable in different locations of the city at different times.

MTN, 9Mobile, Airtel (Zain) and GLO are all available service providers. So if you are planning a visit to Eruwa, like you would do for many other places in the country, you should probably consider having multiple SIM cards, preferably for all the mobile service providers, since you can't tell which will be more stable and reliable at a time in your location during your visit. And if you will risk not having any of them, you might be better off not risking the MTN network, because, from indications, it seem to perform well than the others, though its rates may be high and its offers and services might be stringent, but you are less likely to be concerned of erratic voice and data connection compared to others.

Airtel is another service provider which is fairly satisfactory for all you might need to connect to the world, including rates and network reliability. Of course, Glo (or Globacom) boasts of fast network speed for internet browsing activities, only that you might not be able to enjoy the privilege in some locations. And 9Mobile (formerly Etisalat) usually also performs well in internet browsing speed too but with locational limitations as well, plus data rate is fairly higher.