Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was born in Nigeria in 1900, and went on to be an activist and political voice on a wide range of issues such as women’s suffrage, reforming the colonial tax system, social services, healthcare, education, international peace, and the representation of women in political spheres. She was a living incarnation of her ideals in the latter category: the title ‘chief’ denotes her participation in the parliamentary Western House of Chiefs, one of the first women to attain chieftaincy.
Being a ‘first’ was not alien to Ransome-Kuti: she had been the first girl to attend her grammar school, and was frequently the only woman present in delegations and conferences of the 40s and 50s. Her accomplishments and fearless championship of social justice are plentiful, but one is find particularly inspiring is her leadership of the women’s tax revolt of 1947. The King of Abeokuta, where Ransome-Kuti lived, enforced and benefitted from the British tax system. This involved exploitative taxes, rents and fines that affected ‘market women’. These rules were also imposed by abusive tax collectors, who would strip young girls in public and degrade them. The resisting group was the Abeokuta Women’s Union, of which Ransome-Kuti was president, which united Nigerian women across generations and class divides in protest. Their tactics included petitions, strikes, and peaceful protests outside King Alake’s palace which lasted for days and blockaded him inside. They also wrote defiant songs for their protests, and sometimes protested nude. After nine months, the king went into exile and the unfair tax system was abolished. I would encourage you to find out more about Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti’s awe-inspiring political career: it would be difficult to find someone more influential and well-respected to this day.
