Legend · About 1200 AD to today
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Efon-Alaaye's founder stepped down as Ooni of Ife, walked into the Ekiti hills and built a kingdom, then was called back to Ife to be Ooni all over again. His son's line still rules the hill town.
Efon-Alaaye is a hill town in Ekiti State, in the south-west of Nigeria. The ground is rough and full of hills, and the people mostly farm, growing kola nuts, cocoa and palm trees, along with yam, rice, cassava and maize. In 1983 the town's population was put at over 100,000, and it is the headquarters of Efon Local Government, one of the largest in Ekiti. On the surface it is a quiet farming place. Its founding story is anything but quiet, and the people of Efon tell it with real pride, because it ties their small hill town directly to the oldest throne in Yorubaland.
The people of Efon say their town dates back to about 1200 AD, and that the man who founded it had already been a king somewhere far grander. His name was Obalufon Alaayemore. He was the third Ooni of Ile-Ife, the ancient city the Yoruba call their cradle. He had inherited the throne from his father, Obalufon Ogbogbodirin, and the line goes back to Oduduwa himself, the father of the Yoruba.
Then something unusual happened. The kingmakers of Ife advised Obalufon Alaayemore to leave the throne. They wanted it for his uncle, Oranmiyan, the great war hero of Ife. Obalufon stepped aside, and Oranmiyan became the fourth Ooni.
Think about what that means. A sitting king was told to make room, and he did. The tradition does not describe a war or a rebellion. It describes a man walking away from the most important crown in Yorubaland because the elders asked him to, and going off to start again somewhere else.
Where he went was the hills of what is now Ekiti, and what he started there was Efon.
Obalufon Alaayemore founded the kingdom of Efon-Alaaye after leaving Ife, and he became its first Alaaye, the title Efon's kings still carry. You can hear his own name inside the town's name: Alaayemore, Alaaye. The founder and the throne share a word.
For a while that would have been the end of the story, a deposed king making a new life. But Oranmiyan died, and the kingmakers of Ife came looking for Obalufon again. They called him back to Ife to become the fifth Ooni. So he went.
That makes him something close to unique. He is remembered as about the only known king who reigned over two kingdoms, and reigned over one of them twice, in a single lifetime. Third Ooni, then first Alaaye of Efon, then fifth Ooni. He left Ife a king, built a kingdom from nothing, and came back to Ife a king again.
He did not abandon Efon when he went home. Before leaving, he installed his son, Adudu Oranku, to rule after him. That decision is why the story still matters in the town. Efon's tradition holds that Adudu Oranku's line has reigned there ever since.
Nobody can prove any of this with documents. It is dynastic memory, passed down through the palace and the families who keep it. What it tells you is how Efon sees itself: not as a small town in the hills, but as a kingdom whose first king had sat on the throne of Ife and chose to plant his son here.
Efon today still runs on the structure that grew from that founding. The crown rotates among three ruling houses, in a fixed order: Ogbenuote, then Obologun, then Asemojo. Each house takes its turn, so the throne does not get stuck in a single family.
The town is also divided into six quarters, each headed by a high chief. Together they are called the iwara mefa, and they help the king run the town. Their titles carry their quarters with them: the Obanla of Aaye, the Obaloja of Obalu, the Peteko of Isaja, the Oisajigan of Ejigan, the Alaayo of Emo and the Ojubu of Ikagbe. Aaye, the first quarter, shares its root with the king's own title.
The present king is Oba Emmanuel Aladejare Agunsoye II, the 46th Alaaye of Efon-Alaaye, from the Ogbenuote house. His path to the throne is a very modern one. He holds a master's degree from the University of Manchester and a PhD from the University of Sheffield, and he lectured at Obafemi Awolowo University, which sits in Ile-Ife. So, eight centuries on, Efon's king spent his working life in the same city its founder walked away from.
The town has a President General too, a title called the Aare of Efon-Alaaye, held by Chief Kunle Olajide of the Asemojo ruling house. Religion has changed as well. By the 1930s Christianity had spread so widely that the town was left with several cathedrals, and Catholics, Anglicans and the Christ Apostolic Church are the biggest groups.
But the oldest thing in Efon is still the story of its founder: a king who handed back one crown, built another, and was asked home again.
