Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti And The Women’s Union of Abeokuta

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (1900–1978) was born in Abeokuta, in present-day Ogun State, Nigeria. She was one of the first women to attend Abeokuta Grammar School in 1914, where she would go on to teach. In 1919 she left for Wincham Hall School for Girls, Cheshire, England, to pursue her studies. By the time of her return to Nigeria in 1922, no doubt in reaction to the racism she had encountered in Britain, she had dropped her Christian name, Frances Abigail. She soon became associated with some of the most important anti-colonial educational movements in Nigeria and West Africa1 , and fought tirelessly to further women’s access to education and political representation. Her children Beko, Olikoye and Fela, would all go on to play important roles in education, healthcare, the arts and political activism. In 1944, she founded the Abeokuta Ladies’ Club (later, the Abeokuta Women’s Union), committed to defending women’s political, social and economic rights, which became one of the most important women’s movements of the twentieth century. Her unwavering commitment to cooperation, solidarity and unity led her to play an active role in politics, notably in the pre-independence constitutional negotiations of 1946.

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti belonged to a generation of educators working at a time when local issues were beginning to take on wider regional and national dimensions. In collaboration with her husband, Reverend ‘Daodu’ Ransome-Kuti, she became associated with key educational and anti-colonialist organizations5 . Each organization, in its own way, fought to improve the quality of state education, to abolish colonial racial discrimination, and to unite Nigerians, and Africans, across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Through her experience in education, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was able to develop her skills in connecting political issues at local, regional and national levels. Central to her activism was the struggle for greater educational opportunities for girls, and the defence of women’s rights.

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti’s Abeokuta Ladies’ Club, later renamed the Abeokuta or Egba Women’s Union (AWU), was grounded in local political practice, but was also adaptable to the requirements of the new, national politics. Although it began as a rather elite club whose principal concerns – handicraft, charity, motherhood and social etiquette – were not conducive to mass political organization, the ALC quickly realized that no women’s movement could succeed without the full participation of the majority, the market women. Consequently, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti began to address market women – literate or not – learning from them, and integrating them into the organization’s membership and leadership. An active policy of inclusion extended to language and appearance: Yoruba became the main language of communication, and Yoruba forms of dress, rather than European, became the rule. The organization was fully accountable and possessed its own detailed constitution. The Abeokuta Women’s Union came to have an estimated membership of 20,000 women, and its influence extended to many parts of Nigeria.

Under Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the AWU constantly tried to unite women’s struggles across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Its stated objectives were:

- To protect and preserve the rights of women in Egbaland;

 - To encourage mass education among all women members through literacy classes;

 - To draw together women of all classes and cultural backgrounds; and

- To support any organization fighting for the economic and political independence of the Nigerian people, or of any oppressed group of people.

The Alake Women Fight

The Alake was paid by the colonial government to enforce its gender-differentiated tax laws, first introduced in Abeokuta in 1918. If women failed – or refused – to pay tax, they were often beaten, arrested or even stripped, and their houses searched. In November 1947, a huge crowd of women (The number is often estimated at 10,000), led by Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti marched on the palace of the Alake, singing and dancing in protest against the authorities, and demanding an end to taxation without democratic representation. The Alake was paid by the colonial government to enforce its genderdifferentiated tax laws, first introduced in Abeokuta in 1918. If women failed – or refused – to pay tax, they were often beaten, arrested or even stripped, and their houses searched. In November 1947, a huge crowd of women (The number is often estimated at 10,000), led by Funmilayo RansomeKuti marched on the palace of the Alake, singing and dancing in protest against the authorities, and demanding an end to taxation without democratic representation. The AWU organized another demonstration in December, denouncing the multiple arrests of market women, and the corruption of the colonial legal system. This time, they also demanded the abdication of the Alake.

In April 1948, a march through the streets of Abeokuta led to the suspension of direct taxation on women, and to a tentative increase in women’s political representation. On 3 January 1949, the Alake was forced to abdicate. Although later reinstated, the Alake would never receive the support of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti.

The Expansion

Under Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the AWU, later renamed the Nigerian Women’s Union (1949), became a model organization for the struggle for women’s rights across Nigeria. It opened branches in Calabar, Aba, Benin, Lagos, Ibadan and Enugu, and even reached Kano in the north. Its importance lay in drawing women together across linguistic and cultural differences, in efficient organization, and in insisting upon shared struggles and a shared humanity, at a time when national politics was collapsing into ethnic division. It also became a model for women’s organizations in West Africa (Ghana and Sierra Leone), Asia (China) and Europe (the Soviet Union).

Under Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the AWU, later renamed the Nigerian Women’s Union (1949), became a model organization for the struggle for women’s rights across Nigeria. It opened branches in Calabar, Aba, Benin, Lagos, Ibadan and Enugu, and even reached Kano in the north. Its importance lay in drawing women together across linguistic and cultural differences, in efficient organization, and in insisting upon shared struggles and a shared humanity, at a time when national politics was collapsing into ethnic division. It also became a model for women’s organizations in West Africa (Ghana and Sierra Leone), Asia (China) and Europe (the Soviet Union).

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti’s resolute opposition to the ethnic politics of division spawned by colonialism led her to work with the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), a political party in which she occupied several positions. She was the only woman who travelled to the United Kingdom as part of an NCNC delegation to protest against the proposals of the Richards Constitution of 1946. These proposals, such as the creation of three regional councils for North, East and West, had not been subjected to open debate in Nigeria. And yet she never allowed her involvement in the NCNC to compromise her own voice, nor her commitment to women’s rights. She would go on to found the Federation of Nigerian Women’s Societies, and the Commoner’s Party.

Awards

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was named Member of the Order of the Niger by the Nigerian government for her contribution to the nation (1965). She was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria’s premier university (1968), and the Lenin Peace Prize (1970), ‘in recognition of [her] noble activities for many years in promoting friendship and mutual co-operation between Nigerian and Soviet peoples.