Ilobu

Ilobu is in Osun State. Ilobu is a town and the administrative headquarters of Irepodun Local Government Area of Osun State, Southwest Nigeria.

Understand
Ilobu is located in a sparsely forested area and is bounded on the north by Ifon-Osun, on the south by Osogbo, on the east by Oba and on the west by Erin-Osun. It is watered by Ojutu River, Erinle River, Konda River and a few other streams. The town is said to have been founded by Laarosin, a powerful warrior in the Old Oyo Empire. It has a population of about 30,825 (2006 census).

The Ilobu people's tradition and culture has to do with the way they live, govern themselves, their religion, language, dressing pattern, arts, festivals and the rules they set for themselves. They have a very strong sense of community and this has enhanced mutual understanding and meaningful development in the town.

Ilobu is a big arts and crafts centre in Nigeria. These include metal crafts, weaving, painting and sculpturing and leather work. The dyeing of clothes known as "adire" is well known in Ilobu. Adire is a special art of tying and dyeing of clothes to bring out unique designs. It is very popular all over the world.

Get around




By car
Public vehicles usually found at motorparks are available at a fair price. This option lowers the wait time in waiting for vehicle to be full and also time of arrival as it is faster.

See
Places you should see in Ilobu are the Olobu Palace Complex, the Erinle shrine and Ilobu museum situated within the palace complex.

Buy
Olobu market and Adio markets are held at five day intervals. There is also a daily night market in the town.

Situated along Ilobu-Ifon Osun road, Olobu market is one of the oldest markets in Yorubaland and it comes up every three days. It is the best place to buy and sell staples and cash crops, jewellery, plantains, citrus fruit, yams, cassava, sorghum, beans, okra, peppers, and gourds. Cash crops such as cocoa, cotton, tobacco, palm oil, and palm kernels are collected and sold here.

Livestock, including dwarf cattle, goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, and guinea fowl, are also an important part of the town's economy. Weaving and dyeing are the prominent traditional crafts.

Situated along Ilobu-Ire-akari-Erin Osun road, Adio market is an everyday market in Ilobu where food stuff and other goods are sold. The market attracts a lot of people from within and outside Ilobu and it is normally held from morning to noon.

Sleep
Most prominent among the many hotels in Ilobu is the Royal Palace Hotel (owned by the present Olobu of Ilobu), and located within a ten minutes drive from the state capital.

Connect
For most locations in Ilobu, you would most likely find coverage of the 2G/3G/4G mobile networks. Signal strength might diminish further away from the city center, and you might occasionally experience network outage for all or some of the mobile phone service providers in the remote areas of the city. 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 Ile Ife, like you would do for many other places in Nigeria, 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.

Go next

 * Ife
 * Oshogbo
 * Ilesha
 * Esa Oke