Meet Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the Formidable Nigerian Activist Who Simultaneously Fought for Women’s Rights and Her Nation's Freedom

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (1900-1978), widely known as the ‘Mother of Nigeria’, was one of the women at the forefront of Nigeria’s fight against the British colonial masters. Rather than being just the mother of the legendary Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, or the first woman to drive a car in Nigeria—a token honor that’s been taught in Nigerian schools for decades—Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was a legend in her own right. She was an educator, a feminist trailblazer and a political activist whose fierceness earned her the title of ‘Lioness of Lisabi’.

In 1946, she founded the Abeokuta’s Women Union (AWU), which had a membership of an estimated 20,000 women and was one of the most impressive women’s organizations of its time. Concurrently, she was a key member of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC). She was conferred the chieftaincy title of Oloye in Yorubaland and was the first woman to be appointed to the House of Chiefs.

In 1971, she joined the league of Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere, to receive the prestigious Lenin Peace Prize for her efforts in promoting cooperation between Nigeria and the Soviet Union. She was the first African woman to visit China, where she delivered lectures about Nigerian women’s rights and met Mao Zedong. She was very involved in the Nigerian Union of Teachers and the West African Students’ Union, two of the most important anti-colonial bodies in Nigeria and West Africa at the time.

Ransome-Kuti’s list of accolades is inexhaustible, but in this article, we will focus on the contributions she made to the fight against colonialism in Nigeria.

Ransome-Kuti and the AWU

During World War II (1939-45), the British colonial government introduced unbearably high taxation and a stringent food price control policy in Nigeria. In Abeokuta, part of western Nigeria, the market women struggled to pay the taxes. Consequently, they would have their goods unduly confiscated by the Sole Native Authority (SNA) policemen who abused the powers granted to them under the colonial administration.

Funmilayo-Ransome Kuti led her fellow aggrieved women to protest. The women came out in unprecedented numbers to demonstrate against the colonial authorities and the Alake, the local representative of the British who wielded the most authority amongst the traditional leaders in the region. Shortly after the series of organized protests, the authorities put an end to the confiscation of rice.

However, Ransome-Kuti’s and the AWU’s activism did not end there. The next vice to tackle was the gender-differentiated tax laws which were introduced in Abeokuta in 1918. Females as young as 15 were required to pay three shillings as an annual income tax, even if they were unemployed, while males did not have to pay it till they were 18. Women who failed or refused to pay the taxes were often beaten, arrested or even stripped, and their houses ransacked.

In November 1947, an estimated crowd of 10,000 women, led by Ransome-Kuti, charged to the Alake’s palace, singing and dancing in protest against the authorities and demanding an end to the unfair taxation. They argued that since they were inadequately represented in local government, they should not be required to pay separate taxes from men. Moreso, they believed that under colonialism, their economic power was declining while their taxes were increasing. The protest would come to be known as the Abeokuta Women’s Revolt, and was reminiscent of the Aba Women’s Riots of 1929.

The following month, the AWU organized another demonstration in protest of the multiple arrests of market women and the grossly corrupt colonial legal system. They also called for the abdication of the Alake.

In addition to the protests, Ransome-Kuti had meetings with the British district officials on behalf of the union. During the meetings, she would often speak in the Yoruba language—even though she could speak English very well—forcing the officials to find an interpreter.

The campaigns were successful as in April 1948, four women received seats on the local council and the direct taxation of women ended. And on January 3, 1949, the Alake, Samuel Ademola II, was forced to abdicate and driven into exile. While he was later reinstated, he would never receive Ransome-Kuti’s support.

Speaking on his abdication years later, the Alake said, ‘I could not hate Mrs Ransome-Kuti then and I cannot hate her now, although she continues to cause me a great deal of trouble because, I suppose, I admire her guts. My only regret is that she is using her guts wrongly. With a bit of more level-headedness, there is nothing the little woman couldn’t do for Abeokuta and for Nigeria.’

However, the sentiments expressed about her by several men in Abeokuta, and Nigeria at large, were not nearly as mild. They did not ‘admire her guts’, but instead loathed it and her influence in radicalizing their wives. During the heat of the protests, the Alake himself had referred to Ransome-Kuti and her bevy of women as ‘vipers that could not be tamed’ and banned her from entering the palace.

Ransome-Kuti was fearless, uttering statements like, ‘You may have been born, but you were not bred!’ to the British district officer who disrespected her and the protesting women. Even more iconic, she reprimanded the Alake saying, ‘Alake, for a long time, you have used your penis as a mark of authority that you are our husband. Today, we shall reverse the order and use our vaginas to play the role of a husband.’

Also in 1949, AWU became the Nigerian Women’s Union (NWU) and, under Ransome-Kuti’s leadership, championed women’s rights movements nationwide. NWU would open branches in 7 cities across the country, including Lagos, Enugu in the east and even as far as Kano in the north.

NWU achieved no small feat in effectively uniting women across linguistic and cultural differences, especially at a time when national politics was suffering from ethnic discord. NWU also became a model for women’s organizations in West African countries like Ghana and Sierra Leone, and in Asia and Europe.

National and International Politics

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti held several positions in the NCNC, a political party which was founded by Herbert Macaulay, the father of Nigerian nationalism, and Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first president of Nigeria, in 1946.

In 1947, she was the only woman to join the NCNC delegation to protest the proposals of the 1946 Richards Constitution in Britain. The major bones of contention for the NCNC were the British-majority composition of the Executive Council and the lack of electoral representation for women.

Two years later, Ransome-Kuti was nominated by citizens to represent Abeokuta at the provincial level  of the General Constitutional Conference, which was slated to take place in in January 1950. She was the only woman to partake in the proceedings at the provincial level.

Nonetheless, Ransome-Kuti never allowed her involvement in the NCNC take preeminence over her feminist ideals or compromise her voice. She later founded the Federation of Nigerian Women’s Societies and the Commoner’s People’s Party, through which she ran for a seat in the Federal House of Representatives.

Although she described herself as an ‘African socialist’ rather than a communist, Ransome-Kuti’s dealings with China—and the USSR—made the British fear that she would spread communist ideologies in Nigeria. Consequently, they denied her passport renewal in 1957. The following year, the US denied her a visa, citing ‘too many Communist connections’.

She also had ties to women organizations in Ghana, Algeria and Egypt, and was elected the vice-president of the Women’s International Democratic Foundation in 1953.

Death and Legacy

In February 1977, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti’s son Fela Kuti once again invoked the ire of the military government through his music. About 1000 soldiers stormed Kuti’s compound in Lagos, damaging property, and assaulting residents, including Ransome-Kuti who was thrown from a second-story window. She sustained ultimately fatal injuries as she was admitted at the hospital till her death in April, 1978.

Her funeral was held in Abeokuta, with thousands in attendance. Several market women shut down their shops and whole markets across the city to mark her death. The press was replete with eulogies which dubbed her as a ‘progressive revolutionary’ and a ‘Pan-African Visionary’.

And indeed, Ransome-Kuti championed Pan-Africanism right from her youth, having dropped her Christian names of Frances Abigail in favor of her Yoruba name, Oluwafunmilayo, during her studies in England. She later changed her name again to Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti, taking a cue from her son Fela who dropped ‘Ransome’ due to its slave connotations. Moreso, she was always seen donning traditional Yoruba attire, never confining herself to the ideals of Western formality.

While today, many Nigerians ascribe chauvinistic practices to tradition, Ransome-Kuti was always vocal about the assertion that gender equality  was the norm before the British came along.

In an article published in the British newspaper, The Daily Worker, she said, ‘The men cultivated the land and it was chiefly the duty of women to reap. Women owned property, traded and exercised considerable political and social influence in society. They were responsible for crowning the Kings on Coronation days. Whatever disabilities there (existed) were endured by men and women alike. With the advent of British rule, slavery was abolished, and Christianity introduced into many parts of the country, but instead of the women being educated and assisted to live like human beings their condition deteriorated.’

Thus, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti strove to show that the resistance to British imperialism could not be complete without the resistance to the suppression of women’s rights.