Ransome-Kuti, Funmilayo (1900–1978)

Nigerian teacher and feminist who led her country-women in protest against the British colonial government (1943–49) and was a political force of international stature (1950s). Name variations: Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti; the Lioness of Lisabiland. Born Frances Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas in Abeokuta, Nigeria, on October 25, 1900; died in Abeokuta on April 12, 1978; daughter of Daniel Olumoyewa Thomas (a farmer and trader) and Phyllis Moyeni Dese (a dressmaker); attended St. John's Primary School and Abeokuta Grammar School; studied in Great Britain, 1919–22; married Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, in 1925; children: Dolupo; Olikoye; Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (a singer and musician, known as the king of Afrobeat who died from AIDS in 1997); Beko.

As a teacher of literacy classes, became concerned with issues surrounding the status of women (1930–40s); led thousands in a protest against a special flat tax on women imposed by the British, leading to the resignation of the government and institutional reforms (1947–48); as a member of the Abeokuta Provincial Conference, worked on a new constitution (1948–51); ran unsuccessfully for the House of Assembly in the Egba Division (1951); made second run for a legislative seat (1959); elected a world vice-president of the Women's International Democratic Federation (1952); awarded the Order of Niger for her contributions to the nation (1965); received an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Ibadan (1968).

When the young Nigerian woman faced racial prejudice while studying in Great Britain around 1920, she took a step that would be appreciated by many youths of African origin. Frances Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas dropped her Christian name of Frances in favor of Funmilayo, identifying herself proudly with her African origins. In later years, for her continued courage and tenacity, she would become known as the Lioness of Lisabiland.

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti's family had been entangled with European influences long before her birth. Early in the 19th century, her paternal great-grandparents had been captured by Portuguese slave dealers and transported in a slave cargo before the ship was intercepted by the British and they were repatriated in Sierra Leone. Her grandfather, Ebenezer Shobowale Thomas, grew up to be an Anglican catechist. His son, Daniel Olumoyewa Thomas, became a farmer who traded in palm oil, and married a dressmaker, Phyllis Moyeni Dese , in 1894. Both were Christians and prominent members of the Yoruba tribe. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, christened Frances Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas, was their first daughter, born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, on October 25, 1900. A second daughter, Harriet , was born in 1903. Ransome-Kuti's parents were educated, and they had high aspirations for their children. The sisters attended St. John's Primary School in Abeokuta, where Ransome-Kuti was a pupil from 1906 to 1913. In 1914, she was one of the first girls to attend the secondary Abeokuta Grammar School, founded in 1908. After graduating in 1919, she went to Great Britain, where she studied music, education, domestic science, and French.

Ransome-Kuti returned to Nigeria in 1922, and taught at Abeokuta Grammar School. In 1925, she married Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, an Anglican minister whom she had met while they were both at grammar school. Also a nationalist, he would be one of the founders of the Nigerian Union of Teachers in 1932, and eight years later would encourage the formation of the Nigerian Union of Students, which subsequently grew increasingly political; he was also largely responsible for the establishment of the University of Ibadan. The couple first resided in the town of Ijebu-Ode, near Abeokuta, where their daughter Dolupo Ransome-Kuti was born, followed a year later by their son Olikoye. Sons Fela and Beko would be born in 1938 and 1940, respectively. All the children would attend Abeokuta Grammar School, study in Great Britain, and grow up to contribute actively to the future of their country: Dolupo would become a nurse, Okiloye a doctor and Nigeria's minister of health, Fela an immensely popular musician who challenged the government, and Beko a medical practitioner. The Ransome-Kutis took an egalitarian approach to marriage and family life. Wife and husband were on an equal footing, and their daughter and three sons all shared household chores; equality was a way of life, not merely an ideology.

Initially drawn into a public role because of her husband's position, Ransome-Kuti soon demonstrated her own outstanding qualities of leadership. She had begun literacy classes for adult women in Ijebu-Ode before the couple's return to Abeokuta in 1931. In Abeokuta, she founded a nursery school, and in 1942 she organized the Abeokuta Ladies' Club, which was mostly concerned with charitable work. Ransome-Kuti was again holding literacy classes for women in 1944, when a student requested that newspapers be included in their reading material. As she taught this woman to read newspapers, Ransome-Kuti discovered how many articles asserted the inferior status of women, and began to see a correlation between British colonialism and Nigerian women's loss of rank.

In traditional Nigerian society, women had enjoyed high social status. Expected to support themselves economically, they did so largely through farming and trade, and the country's market women were famous for their astute business practices. They created extensive networks with European trading partners, sold vegetables, palm oil, cloth, and a variety of other goods throughout the country and beyond, such as Okwei of Osomari , and became quite wealthy. Women's economic significance was reflected in Nigeria's "dual-sex" form of government, in which women essentially ruled over women and men ruled over men. This political system had been taken for granted before British colonial rule, which brought in a male-dominated system of government, law and custom that resulted in a serious loss of position for Nigerian women. Under British rule, the nominal head of government was the alake, a traditional Nigerian ruler whose powers had been delineated and greatly increased through the Sole Native Authority system, introduced by the British to facilitate administrative duties and the collection of taxes.

In Ransome-Kuti's literacy classes, the imposition of foreign taxation, as well as the loss of status felt by the market women, soon became an issue of contention. They also began to complain to her about the exorbitant taxes imposed by the British. The situation was made worse as World War II continued and the market women were coerced into selling food to Nigerian soldiers at very low prices. The market women resentfully began to identify new and foreign abuses of power under Alake Ademola, who was not following traditional Nigerian customs, especially in his dealings with women. Supported by the Abeokuta Ladies' Club and the Nigerian Union of Teachers (founded by her husband), Ransome-Kuti helped the market women draw up petitions and swear out complaints against the officials of the alake. Soon they began adding demands to their complaints, for if women were to be taxed, they reasoned, they should receive benefits in return. Ransome-Kuti presented resolutions demanding improved sanitation, medical care, literacy classes, and playgrounds for children.

In 1946, Ransome-Kuti renamed her group the Abeokuta Women's Union (AWU), redefining its activities as essentially political rather than social. The organization now had a threefold political purpose: 1) to unite Nigerian women; 2) to promote women's economic, social, and political rights; and 3) to cooperate with all organizations in fighting for the independence of the Nigerian people. The Abeokuta Women's Union quickly grew to 20,000 members. In the early stages of protest, Ransome-Kuti and the AWU members wrote many letters and petitions. While not declaring an outright rejection of British colonialism, the group did reject the male paternalism inherent in the system. It wanted abolition of the female flat tax rate, the removal of Ademola as alake, the abolition of the Sole Native Authority System, and reform of the administrative system to include the participation of women. When these approaches proved unsuccessful, the AWU prepared for a more dramatic step.

On November 29, 1947, thousands of women marched on the palace of the alake. Just before reaching their destination, Ransome-Kuti commanded all the women to close their eyes, so that anyone who was afraid could leave without shame. None left. The women occupied the palace grounds, where they remained for 24 hours, and beginning on December 8 the vigil was repeated for 48 hours, while the women's markets remain closed. As part of the demonstrations, they carried out mock traditional sacrifices, sang abusive songs, and held a "funeral" for Ademola.

Following the December rally, the Majeobaji Society, a secret men's political group that had been formed in 1947, threw its support behind the women, demanding that the tax against men be raised and the tax against women abolished. The alake refused. On February 12, 1948, Ransome-Kuti was ordered to appear in court for her part in the demonstrations. The tough stance she took there won her widespread admiration. She got into a physical fight with the district officer, and, although she had an idiomatic command of English, chose to speak only in Yoruba and insisted that all replies made to her in English be translated into Yoruba.

The women's political impact was clearly being felt by April 28, 1948, when they made another march, this one lasting five hours, through the streets of Abeokuta. Shaken by this demonstration, the alake suspended taxation, set up a committee to examine tax policy, and agreed to admit women to his advisory council. On July 4, 1948, the Ogboni chiefs, once the alake's strongest supporters, demanded that the Sole Native Authority system be dismantled as it was "not in accordance with native law and custom." They then boycotted meetings of the Egba Council to show their displeasure. The entire town was in a state of unrest on July 7–8, when the women held further mass demonstrations. On July 26, after violence broke out during a demonstration by a group of young men, the alake fled. Women demonstrated again for the next two days. The following January, Alake Ademola abdicated, the flat rate tax on women was abolished, and the Sole Native Authority system ceased to exist.

Ransome-Kuti continued her activist role throughout the 1950s. She became the only woman among the 28 members of the Abeokuta Provincial Conference, which worked on a new constitution from 1948 to 1951. She was a candidate for the House of Assembly in the Egba Division in 1951, but was defeated; full free franchise for Nigerian women would not be granted until 1959, so very few women could vote at that time. Ransome-Kuti served as a member of the Egba Council, however, and was a leader of the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC), a militant political party. By 1952, her influence was felt in the international sphere, when she was made world vice-president of the Women's International Democratic Federation. In this role, she visited a number of countries, including the People's Republic of China. After her husband, who had always supported her work, died of cancer in 1955, she was determined to carry on. Despite the fact that her Christian and democratic principles were well known, the British and Nigerian governments labeled her a communist sympathizer, and in 1957, the government of Nigeria refused to renew her passport until public outcry led it to relent. The following year, her alleged communist connections caused the United States to deny her a visa to attend an International Women's Organization conference, a tactic frequently used at the time against radical feminists.

In 1959, Ransome-Kuti ran again for the House of Representatives. Infighting with the NCNC led her to found her own party, the Commoners' People's Party, but this second bid for election was also unsuccessful. Afterward she became involved in a prolonged campaign against a special water rate that had been imposed on women. After refusing to pay the tax, she and several women were arrested, and then, after further protest, rearrested; her resistance continued until 1960, when the tax was finally abolished. Ransome-Kuti became an advisor to President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, and used her leadership position in Nigeria and the international community to speak out against injustice. After the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa, she denounced the murders and offered her support to the outlawed African National Congress. She was also a frequent visitor to Britain, where she lectured on the deterioration of the status of Nigerian women under colonial rule.

May I never let womanhood down.

—Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti

In 1966, the armed forces took over the Nigerian government, and all party politics were proscribed. Ransome-Kuti, who had been awarded the Order of Niger the previous year for her contributions to the country, spoke eloquently against the demise of Nigerian democracy. Her son Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, who by the time of his death in 1997 would be Nigeria's most influential and outspoken musician, joined her in condemning the military regime. In 1968, the University of Ibadan conferred upon her an honorary doctorate of laws. She was also awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union for her work on behalf of the people of Africa. The clever satirical songs Fela wrote and performed about the regime, however, led to physical attacks on a number of occasions. Ransome-Kuti was staying at her son's house in February 1977 when some 1,000 soldiers arrived to confront him. In the ensuing fray, during which the house was destroyed, soldiers threw Ransome-Kuti from a second-story window. The fall brought on a stroke from which she never fully recovered. She died the following year, on April 12, 1978. A later government inquiry into her death closed by placing the blame on an "unknown soldier." Her son Fela wrote a song, titled "Un-known Soldier," which went: "Dem start magic, dem bring hat, dem bring rabbit, dem bring egg, dem bring smoke," and "then they say: un-known soldier." Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti's funeral on May 5 was attended by thousands who remembered all she had done for women and for Nigeria, and market women closed their stalls as a mark of respect for the Lioness of Lisabiland.

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Karin Loewen Haag , freelance writer, Athens, Georgia