The unsung female heroes of Africa’s liberation you should know

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Nigeria

Funmilayo was a teacher, political campaigner, women’s rights activist and traditional aristocrat in Nigeria.

After seeing the excesses of the government in Abeokuta, she organised a protest together with the Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU), which she had formed as a way of bringing together the elite and market women of the area.  She had led training of these women in the guise of picnics and festivals as a way to get permits.  Although she was arrested in 1947, the AWU continued with its protests against taxation.

Funmilayo’s political activism saw her get a seat at the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), becoming the only woman in the executive.

In 1947, she was also the only female delegate to go to London to lodge a formal protest with the secretary of state for the colonies. She was one of the delegates who negotiated Nigeria’s independence with the British government.

She died in 1978 from injuries incurred after military officials threw her out of a window on the third floor of her son’s Fela Kuti’s home.