Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome Kuti
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She was the doyen of female rights in Nigeria and was regarded by many as "The Mother of Africa", being a very powerful force at a time when it was a taboo for women to be heard. As a founding mother of her nation, Chieftess Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti fought for the rights of her countrywomen against a neo-traditionalistic sexism which was, at least in her view, contrary to the true traditions of her continent. Due to these efforts, she was described in 1947 by the West African Pilot as the Lioness of Lisabi. A lifelong teacher and scholar, Ransome-Kuti served with distinction as an educator and activist for the vast majority of her days on Earth.
She led her fellow Egba women on a campaign against the indiscriminate taxation of women by the British colonial government, and that struggle led to the abdication of the Egba high king Oba Ademola II in 1949 due to his having been granted the right to collect the said taxes. She also oversaw the abolition of separate taxes for women. The chieftess subsequently fought for the rights of women to vote in Africa at a time when the practice was even a novelty to many of the World's most advanced nations.
Ransome-Kuti was a reigning member of the House of Chiefs of her native Yorubaland and served as the first Nigerian woman to drive a car in Nigeria, an act that was previously regarded as the exclusive preserve of the men of her country. In arguably her greatest achievement, she served as the only female member of the team of nationalists which successfully negotiated the independence of Nigeria. She founded an organization for women in Abeokuta, with a membership tally of over 20 thousand individuals spanning both literate and illiterate women. She launched the organization into public consciousness when she rallied women against price controls which were hurting the trade of market women, trading having been one of the major occupations of women in western Nigeria at the time.
- Her husband Rev. Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti
He fought for commoners too, serving as one of the founders of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) in the 1930s - a platform established to fight for the rights of the underprivileged teachers of the colonial era - and of the Nigerian Union of Students (NUS).
Rev. Kuti was reputed to have become an Anglican priest not as a matter of interest but as the only means to gain western education at the time of his youth, as he could not afford education any other way.
Rev. Ransome-Kuti also established the Abeokuta Grammar School as a direct response and challenge to the European missionaries of the era, who claimed that they could not give true education from the African perspective to Africans. Indeed he persuaded his nephew, the later Professor Wole Soyinka, not to leave the school for Government College, Ibadan, when he was admitted there.
Rev. and Mrs. Kuti's children were also powerful human rights activists in their own rights:
- Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti
A consultant paediatrician, former Health Minister of Nigeria under several regimes, one-time Chairman of the Executive Board of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
- Musical legend Olufela Anikulapo-Kuti - better known as Fela Kuti or just Fela
He was a multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick. He is one of the most popular musicians ever to come out of Africa.
- Dr Bekololari Kuti (Beko Kuti),
Beko Ransome-Kuti helped to form Nigeria's first human rights organization, the Campaign for Democracy, which in 1993 opposed the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha. Ransome-Kuti was a fellow of the West African College of Physicians and Surgeons, a leading figure in the British Commonwealth's human rights committee, chair of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights and executive director of the Centre for Constitutional Governance.
- their sister Dolupo Kuti.
Members of her extended family were also very influential people who lived their lives for the betterment of the common people. For example:
- Her Husband's nephew (cousin to her children) Prof. Wole Soyinka
He is a writer, poet and playwright, and is considered by some as Africa's most distinguished author, having won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986, the first African to be so honored.
Wole Soyinka's mother - Grace Eniọla Soyinka - dubbed "Wild Christian" by Wọle, owned a shop in the nearby market and was a respected political activist within the local community. Soyinka's mother was also very active - side-by-side with Mrs. Kuti - in that struggle that led to the abolition of indiscriminate taxation against women.
Wole Soyinka's father - Samuel Ayọdele Soyinka - was the headmaster of St. Peters School in Abẹokuta.
Read more about this topic: Legends Of Africa