The contributions women make to national development in every nation cannot be over-emphasized and so the role Nigerian women played in nation building cannot be underestimated. From 1960 when Nigeria became a sovereign state, women activists had contributed to the national struggle for the nation’s independence from British colonial rule. As Nigeria celebrates its 53th independence, Joyce Remi- Babayeju and Ogechi Okorondu examine the role of Nigeria’s foremost woman activist, the Late (Mrs) Abigail Olufunmilayo Ransome- Kuti.
Late Funmilayo Ransome Kuti’s name is synonymous with women’s struggle for voting rights and sundry issues affecting the welfare of Nigerian women in the 50’s. Her political activism led to her being described as the doyen of female rights in Nigeria, and this earned her the name “ Mother of Africa’’. She was the first woman to drive a car and to ride a motor bike in Nigeria.
Francis Abigail Funmilayo Ransome – Kuti became a very powerful force who advocated for the Nigerian woman’s right to vote and because of her dexterity for women cause, in 1947 the then tabloid , West African Pilot described her as the Lioness of Lisabi’’ for her leadership role in championing taxation issues concerning women of Egba clan. In 1949 the women struggle led to the resignation of the Egba king, His Royal Highest Oba Ademola 11.
Ransome- Kuti the educator and female activist joined forces with co-activist Elizabeth Adekogbe to found a 2000 women member organisation comprising of both literate and illiterate women in Abeokuta, her native town.
The 2000 women group was later turned into a public consciousness channel when she rallied women against price controls which affected the women traders in Abeokuta markets because trading was their major occupation at that time.
As an active member of the ruling National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons party, NCNC, she used her position to campaign for women’s votes in the country. She founded the Egba / Abeokuta Women’s Union along with Eniola Soyinka (her sister-in-law and the mother of the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. This organisation had a membership of 20,000 women. She encouraged and organised workshops for illiterate market women even as she continued to campaign against taxes and price controls in the local markets.
Late Ransome –Kuti was born in 25 October 1900 in Abeokuta and died on 13 April 1978. She was a Nigerian Women’s rights activist, feminist, author and traditional aristocrat. She was the mother of activists, Fela Anikulapo Kuti (musician), Beko Ransome-Kuti (doctor) and Professor Olikoye Ransome Kuti (doctor and former minister in Nigeria). She was also grandmother to musicians Seun Kuti and Femi Kuti.
Francis Abigail Olufunmilayo Ransome –Kuti nee Thomas attended the Abeokuta Grammar school before proceeding to the United Kingdom to further her studies She soon returned to Nigeria and became a teacher. In 1925 she married the Late Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome Kuti. He was one of the founders of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, NUT and the Nigerian Union of Students, NUS.
She was born Francis Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas to Daniel Olumeyuwa Thomas and Lucretia Phyllis Omoyeni Adeosolu. She served with distinction as one of the most prominent leaders of her generation.
Her father Daniel Thomson was taken as a slave from Nigeria to Sierra Leone, but he later traced his ancestral history back to Abeokuta in present day Ogun State, Nigeria. He became a member of the Anglican Faith, and soon returned to the homeland of his fellow Egbas, Abeokuta.
Her husband, the Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome Kuti also defended the commoners of his country.
Ransome-Kuti received the national honor of membership in the Order of Nigeria in 1965. The University of Ibadan bestowed upon her the honorary doctorate of laws in 1968. She also held a seat in the Western House of Chiefs of Nigeria as an Oloye of the Yoruba people.
In 1949, she led a protest against Native Authorities, especially against the Alake of Egbaland. She presented documents alleging abuse of authority by the Alake, who had been granted the right to collect the taxes by his colonial suzerain, the Government of the United Kingdom. He subsequently relinquished his crown for a time due to the affair. She also oversaw the successful abolishing of separate tax rates for women. In 1953, she founded the Federation of Nigerian Women Societies which subsequently formed an alliance with the Women’s International Democratic Federation.
During the Cold War and before the independence of her country, Funmilayo Kuti travelled far and wide and her contacts with British and American Governments and the Eastern Bloc angered the Nigerian government. This included her travel to the former USSR, Hungary and China where she met Mao Zedong.
Because of her indiscriminate travelling in 1956, her passport was not renewed by the government because it was said that “it can be assumed that it is her intention to influence Nigerian women with communist ideas and policies.” She was also refused a U.S. visa because the American government alleged that she was a communist.
Prior to independence, she founded the Commoners Peoples Party in an attempt to challenge the ruling NCNC, ultimately denying them victory in her area. She got 4,665 votes to NCNC’s 9,755, thus allowing the opposition Action Group (which had 10,443 votes) to win. She was one of the delegates that negotiated Nigeria’s independence with the British government.
In old age, her activism was over-shadowed by that of her three sons, who provided effective opposition to various military governments. In 1978 Funmilayo was thrown from a second-floor window when her son Fela’s compound, a commune known as the Kalakuta Republic, was stormed by one thousand armed military personnel. She lapsed into a coma in February of that year, and died on 13 April 1978, as a result of the injuries she sustained.