INTRODUCTION 1 Geographical Description: Location and Topography Oke-Aba is a village in Isin Local Government Area of Kwara State. It is one of Iwo villages and it is located at a point 0 80kilometers East of Ilorin on latitude 8.5 N and longitude E. Its GPS location is 8 20' 7 N, and 5 2' 35 E it is served by a motorable road from Oke-Onigbin, leading on to Ora by the left and to Owode straight ahead. The road bisects the town unequally from North to South. On either side of the road the town is a little over half a kilometer. Oke-Aba is bounded on the South by Iwo, on the North by Owode on the North-West by Iwo-Odu-Ore and on the South-East by Oba. The town is situated in the Savannah region with its characteristic features of tall grass and scattered trees. Essentially, it lies on the western fringe of a series of South- West-North-East trending range of hills. From the western fringe of this range westwards, including the town, the land is generally flattish, gently undulating with a maximum altitude in the neighborhood of 457m (1500ft) above sea level. The hill itself rises to a peak of about 579m (1900ft) above sea level. Geology The entire area is made up of schistose quartzite, micaceous in places. One prominent characteristic of the rock in this area is

17 that as one climbs higher uphill the rock gets more micaceous and more thinly laminated with fine lineations generally in the direction of dip. The strike is generally consistent in the range 0 0 of 156 to 215. Dips are also consistently gentle, especially in the lower areas. Diastrophism is highly pronounced with the result that the rock is badly fractured everywhere. Faulting, shattering and joining of no specific pattern are the features observed here. Geomorphology The best that can be said of weathering effect in this area is attributable largely to diastrophism. This is because quartz which is almost entirely the sole constituent of the rocks, is highly resistant to weathering. However, owing to the shattering, broken pieces of all sizes are easily moved out of place, rolled down-hill under the effect of gravity, aeolian and aquatic currents. These break down further with time. As a result of this, the town abounds in rock particles of all sizes ranging from pebble to cable sizes. The over burden, which is made up of these is rather moderate in thickness. It is red brown laterite in more places and dark coloured sandy soil in some. Gullies are very abundant in the town. Hydrology The hill to the Eastern side of the town, including Awoji hill, forms part of a major regional watershed. Owing to the shattered, laminated nature of the rocks, the area abounds in freely flowing underground water. This can be seen oozing out freely in many places where the rock outcrops. All available data as well as the fact that the town is close to the watershed, suggest that water table would be very close to ground surface all year round.

18 Of all the rivers taking their sources from the fill, only River otoro passes through Oke-Aba Town. Its source is about 2.5km to the East of the bridge that one encounters just before entering the town on the approach from Oke-Onigbin. River Otoro is clear, perennial and was the sole source of water supply for the town until it was replaced by bore holes. It is fed by streamlets also taking their sources from nearby. The most prominent of this is Oga-Epon which joins the river about 500m from the bridge. Somewhere along its track, Oga-Epon disappears over a distance of about 10m before resurfacing. This is an indication that River Otoro must also be fed from numerous underground sources that could not be observed from the surface since groundwater is abundant and water table is very close to ground surface. Population The first idea of the population of Oke-Aba and other villages in the present Isin has been derived from the record of 1917 and 1918 tax assessment. There, only figures of taxable male adults were given, but since all villages under the various village areas were given, an idea of what the population of each village was, could easily be postulated. Thus the figures for the four village Areas in the present Isin for the year 1917 and 1918 are given in the National Archives, Kaduna under reference NAK, ILORPROF At present, 1995, Oke-Aba has an estimated population of about 4,000, out of which more than half reside outside the town.

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