Shaki

Shaki, also written Saki, is a city in the northern part of Oyo State in western Nigeria and the headquarters of the Saki West local government area. It stands in hilly country near the source of the Ofiki River, the chief tributary of the Ogun River, about 60 kilometres from the border with Benin, and a 490-metre inselberg rises above the surrounding savanna. Originally part of the Oyo Empire, it became a refugee settlement for Yoruba people after Fulani forces destroyed Old Oyo in 1835, and an Anglican mission had a church there by the early 1860s. The town is called the food basket of Oyo State: it exports cotton, swamp rice, teak and tobacco, grows indigo for local dyeing, weaves cotton cloth, and is known for elubo yam flour, shea butter and cooking pots of cast aluminium sold at the Thursday Sango market. It has hospitals and many schools, including the Oke-Ogun Polytechnic, and its traditional ruler holds the title Okere of Shaki.