Biography
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, also known as Francis Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas was born on October 25, 1900, in Abeokuta, Ogun State of Nigeria. Her father was a son of a Nigerian slave
who returned from Sierra Leone, and traced his ancestral history back to Abeokuta in what is today known as Ogun State, Nigeria.
After her early education, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti attended the Abeokuta Grammar school, after which she traveled to England for further studies. She later came back to Nigeria and became a teacher.
On January 20, 1925, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti got married to Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome Kuti, one of the founders of both the Nigeria Union of Teachers and of the Nigerian Union of Students, and a defender of the commoners. In the year 1965, Ransome-Kuti received the national honor of membership in the Order of Nigeria, and was also bestowed the honorary doctorate of laws by the University of Ibadan in the year 1968.
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was also an Oloye of the Yoruba people and held a seat in the Western House of Chiefs.
Throughout her career, Funmilayo was known as an educator and activist. She joined forces with Elizabeth Adekogbe in providing dynamic leadership for the women's rights in the 1950s. It was her, who founded an organization for women in Abeokuta, that had more than 20,000 women as members, including both literate and illiterate women.
The general public became aware of her organization, when Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti rallied women against price controls that were negatively affecting the female merchants of the Abeokuta markets. In the year 1949, she led a protest against the Alake of Egbaland, a native authority. She then made a presentation of documents alleging abuse of authority by the Alake, whom the then government, granted the right to collect the taxes. The Atake subsequently relinquished his crown. She also led a movement that oversaw the successful abolishing of separate tax rates for women.
In the year 1953, she founded the Federation of Nigerian Women Societies, an association that subsequently formed an alliance with the Women's International Democratic Federation.
Funmilayo Ransome Kuti campaigned for, and ensured that women's votes counted during elections. For many years, she was a member of the ruling National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons party. However, she was later expelled when she failed to be elected into a federal parliamentary seat. At the time at NCNC, she was the treasurer and subsequently, the president of the Western NCNC women's Association. After she was suspended, she could no longer hold her political voice high in the national politics, as the more powerful members of the opposition, Awolowo and Adegbenro, had support of the westerners.
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was the founder of the Egba or Abeokuta Women's Union, an association she co-founded with Eniola Soyinka (her sister-in-law and the mother of the Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka). This organization is said to, at a particular point in time, had a membership of 20,000 women. During her life time, Funmilayo Ransom Kuti organised workshops for illiterate market women.
During the period of the Cold War between the West the former USSR, and before the independence of Nigeria, Funmilayo Kuti traveled widely around the world, and this got the Nigerian as well as British and American Governments angry because they believed that she maintains contacts with the Eastern Bloc, as she traveled a lot to the former USSR, Hungary and China where she met Mao Zedong. In 1956, the government refused to renew her passport because it was assumed that she intended to influence the Nigerian women with communist ideas and policies. Almost at the same time, the United States refused her visa because the American government alleged that she was a communist.
Before the Nigeria?s independence of 1960, Funmilayo founded the Commoners Peoples Party in an attempt to challenge the ruling NCNC, this action ultimately denied the NCNC victory in her area.
When she became old, Funmilayo?s activism was overshadowed by that of her three sons, who ultimately provided effective opposition to various Nigerian military juntas. In 1978 Funmilayo was thrown down from a third-floor window of her son (Fela) 's compound, when the compound was stormed by about one thousand armed military personnel. She went into coma in February of that year, and died on April 13, 1978, as a result of her injuries.
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Biography
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti. Biography and Activism.
who returned from Sierra Leone, and traced his ancestral history back to Abeokuta in what is today known as Ogun State, Nigeria.
After her early education, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti attended the Abeokuta Grammar school, after which she traveled to England for further studies. She later came back to Nigeria and became a teacher.
On January 20, 1925, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti got married to Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome Kuti, one of the founders of both the Nigeria Union of Teachers and of the Nigerian Union of Students, and a defender of the commoners. In the year 1965, Ransome-Kuti received the national honor of membership in the Order of Nigeria, and was also bestowed the honorary doctorate of laws by the University of Ibadan in the year 1968.
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was also an Oloye of the Yoruba people and held a seat in the Western House of Chiefs.
Throughout her career, Funmilayo was known as an educator and activist. She joined forces with Elizabeth Adekogbe in providing dynamic leadership for the women's rights in the 1950s. It was her, who founded an organization for women in Abeokuta, that had more than 20,000 women as members, including both literate and illiterate women.
The general public became aware of her organization, when Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti rallied women against price controls that were negatively affecting the female merchants of the Abeokuta markets. In the year 1949, she led a protest against the Alake of Egbaland, a native authority. She then made a presentation of documents alleging abuse of authority by the Alake, whom the then government, granted the right to collect the taxes. The Atake subsequently relinquished his crown. She also led a movement that oversaw the successful abolishing of separate tax rates for women.
In the year 1953, she founded the Federation of Nigerian Women Societies, an association that subsequently formed an alliance with the Women's International Democratic Federation.
Funmilayo Ransome Kuti campaigned for, and ensured that women's votes counted during elections. For many years, she was a member of the ruling National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons party. However, she was later expelled when she failed to be elected into a federal parliamentary seat. At the time at NCNC, she was the treasurer and subsequently, the president of the Western NCNC women's Association. After she was suspended, she could no longer hold her political voice high in the national politics, as the more powerful members of the opposition, Awolowo and Adegbenro, had support of the westerners.
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was the founder of the Egba or Abeokuta Women's Union, an association she co-founded with Eniola Soyinka (her sister-in-law and the mother of the Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka). This organization is said to, at a particular point in time, had a membership of 20,000 women. During her life time, Funmilayo Ransom Kuti organised workshops for illiterate market women.
During the period of the Cold War between the West the former USSR, and before the independence of Nigeria, Funmilayo Kuti traveled widely around the world, and this got the Nigerian as well as British and American Governments angry because they believed that she maintains contacts with the Eastern Bloc, as she traveled a lot to the former USSR, Hungary and China where she met Mao Zedong. In 1956, the government refused to renew her passport because it was assumed that she intended to influence the Nigerian women with communist ideas and policies. Almost at the same time, the United States refused her visa because the American government alleged that she was a communist.
Before the Nigeria?s independence of 1960, Funmilayo founded the Commoners Peoples Party in an attempt to challenge the ruling NCNC, this action ultimately denied the NCNC victory in her area.
When she became old, Funmilayo?s activism was overshadowed by that of her three sons, who ultimately provided effective opposition to various Nigerian military juntas. In 1978 Funmilayo was thrown down from a third-floor window of her son (Fela) 's compound, when the compound was stormed by about one thousand armed military personnel. She went into coma in February of that year, and died on April 13, 1978, as a result of her injuries.
- Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Wole born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian playwright and poet. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African to be so honored. Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. After study...
- Femi Kuti
Olufela Olufemi Anikulapo Kuti (born 16 June 1962), popularly known as Femi Kuti, is a Nigerian musician and the eldest son of afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti, Femi was born in London to Fela and Remi Kuti and grew up in the former Nigerian capital, Lagos....
- Femi Kuti
Femi Kuti was born in London in 1962. He quit school in 1978 to play saxophone in his father's band Egypt 80. In 1986, while Fela enjoyed huge popularity which attracted government disapproval, Femi Kuti took up the pioneer's afrobeat mantle and...
- Biography Of Wole Soyinka; Author; Ogun State Celebrity.
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