History of Nigeria city-states. A state council (the "Oyo Mesi") named the "Alaafin" (king) and acted as a check on his authority. Their capital city was situated about 100 km north of present-day Oyo. Unlike the forest-bound Yoruba kingdoms, Oyo was in the savanna and drew its military strength from its cavalry forces, which established hegemony over the adjacent Nupe and the Borgu kingdoms and thereby developed trade routes farther to the north. The Benin Empire (1440–1897; called "Bini" by locals) was a pre-colonial African state in what is now modern Nigeria. It should not be confused with the modern-day country called Benin,
Yoruba people century. It is due to the influence of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first Anglican bishop in Nigeria. Crowther was himself an Oyo Yoruba and compiled the first Yoruba dictionary as well as introducing a standard for Yoruba orthography. The alternative name "Akú", apparently an exonym derived from the first words of Yoruba greetings (such as "Ẹ kú àárọ?" "good morning", "Ẹ kú alẹ?" "good evening") has survived in certain parts of their diaspora as a self-descriptive, especially in Sierra Leone. The Yoruba culture was originally an oral tradition, and the majority of Yoruba people are native speakers of the