FUNMILAYO RANSOME-KUTI: 41-Years After Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti’s Death, Biography, History, Death

Funny how time flies! All seems just like yesterday on 13th of April, 1978 when Nigeria and the world as a whole lost a legend, a woman of passion and innovative-mindset. Supposedly she’s alive(which of course she is! – her works are!), she’ll be 118/119 years old today. The whole picture of what it looks like might still be fresh on some people’s brain, but hardly would you be able to count up to hundreds of persons who still remembers what it was like back then.
Big thanks to Wikipedia, Google and search engine as whole, we here at All Naija Entertainment were able to trace it back through their precious aid!. And today, October 25th, 2019, we here at All Naija Entertainment presents you an amazing history, story, biography and even more things to know about heroine chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti – the first woman in the country to drive a car. Saddle your horse, and journey with us to this beautiful episode!
Meanwhile, get yourself a chilled kunnu, zobo or any other milk drink, sip alongside bucket of popcorn while your scroll through.

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Quick Question

Is Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti the mother of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti? A big YES! She’s the mother!..

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Complete Biography Of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti

FULL NAME: Francis Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas.
DATE OF BIRTH: October 25th, 1900 [Abeokuta, Southern Nigeria (now Abeokuta, Ogun State)].
DIED ON: April 13th 1978 (aged 77) in Lagos, Nigeria.
LIFE SPAN: October 25th, 1900 – April 13th 1978 (aged 77).
SPOUSE/HUSBAND: Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti.
RELIGION: Christianity.
STATE OF ORIGIN: Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria.
NATIONALITY: Nigeria.
OCCUPATION: Educator, politician, women’s rights activist.
LANGUAGES: Yoruba, American English, (Maybe Igbo & Hausa too**winks**).
ETHNICITY: Black
RELATIONSHIP: Married.
CHILDREN: Olikoye Ransome-Kuti (son), Beko Ransome-Kuti (son), Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (son), Dolapo Ransome-Kuti (daughter).
RELATIVES: Femi Kuti (grandson), Seun Kuti (grandson), Wole Soyinka (nephew), Yemisi Ransome-Kuti (niece).
NET WORTH: loading…

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Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, MON ( /ˌfʊnmiˈlaɪjoʊ ˈrænsəm ˈkuːti/; 25 October 1900 – 13 April 1978), otherwise known as Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti, was a teacher, political campaigner, women’s rights activist and traditional aristocrat in Nigeria. She served with distinction as one of the most prominent leaders of her generation. She was also the first woman in the country to drive a car.

Born as Francis Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas, she was the first female student at the Abeokuta Grammar School (a secondary school), which she attended from 1914 to 1917. Ransome-Kuti’s political activism led to her being described as the doyenne of female rights in Nigeria, as well as to her being regarded as “The Mother of Africa.” Early on, she was a very powerful force advocating for the Nigerian woman’s right to vote. She was described in 1947, by the West African Pilot, as the “Lioness of Lisabi” for her leadership of the women of the Egba people on a campaign against their arbitrary taxation. That struggle led to the abdication of the high king Oba Ademola II in 1949.

Kuti was the mother of the Nigerian activists Fela Anikulapo Kuti, a musician; Beko Ransome-Kuti, a doctor; and Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, a doctor and health minister. She was also grandmother to musicians Seun Kuti and Femi Kuti. She is highly regarded in her native Nigeria for notable acts as an African woman.

Francis Abigail Olufunmilayo Thomas was born on 25 October 1900, in Abeokuta, to Daniel Olumeyuwa Thomas (1869-1954) and Lucretia Phyllis Omoyeni Adeosolu (1874-1956) of the Jibolu-Taiwo family. Her father was a son of a returned slave, Ebenezer Sobowale Thomas, from Sierra Leone (see Nova Scotian Settlers), who traced his ancestral history back to Abeokuta in what is today Ogun State, Nigeria. He became a member of the Anglican faith, and soon returned to the homeland of his fellow Egbas.

Funmilayo Randsome-Kuti’s parents believed in the value of education. She attended Abeokuta Grammar School for her secondary education, and later went to England for further studies. She soon returned to Nigeria and became a teacher.

On 20 January 1925, she married the Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti. He also defended the commoners of his country, and was one of the founders of both the Nigeria Union of Teachers and of the Nigerian Union of Students. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti organized literacy classes for Women in the early 1920s and founded a nursery school in the 1930s. She founded the Abeokuta Ladies’ Club (ALC) for educated women involved in charitable work in 1942. She also started the social Welfare for Market Women club to help educate working-class women (which formed the first adult education programme for women in Nigeria).

Ransome-Kuti received the national honour of membership in the Order of the Niger in 1965. The University of Ibadan bestowed upon her the honorary doctorate of laws in 1968. She also held a seat in the Western House of Chiefs of Nigeria as an Oloye of the Yoruba people.

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Activism

Throughout her career, she was known as an educator and activist. She and Elizabeth Adekogbe provided dynamic leadership for women’s rights in the 1950s. Ransome-Kuti founded an organization for women in Abeokuta called the Abeokuta Women’s Union, with a membership tally of more than 20,000 individuals, spanning both literate and illiterate women.

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Women’s Rights

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti began her active participation in feminism when she created the Abeokuta Ladies Club (ALC), which later became the Women’s Union of Abeokuta (AWU). She created this group to promote gender equality, and to raise awareness against the injustice that women were receiving. The club began with middle class women who were Western educated, but quickly expanded to market women, and soon, over 100,000 women were a part of the organization. Owing to the number of women who were a part of the organization, they expanded once again. This time they became the Nigerian Women’s Union (NWU), which was later renamed the Federation of Nigerian Women’s Societies (FNWS). The organization with Kuti’s leadership fought for equality in all areas for women.

Ransome-Kuti launched the organization into public consciousness when she rallied women against price controls that were hurting the market women. Trading was one of the major occupations of women in the Western Nigeria at the time. Ransome-Kuti led countless protests against Abeokuta and Nigeria. Her first well known protest came in 1948, when she led a protest in Abeokuta against a tax placed on women. She was angered by this new tax not just because it was a sexist tax, but also due to the fact that the women – contrary to prior tradition – were not represented in government at that time. In 1949, she led a protest against Native Authorities, especially against the Alake of Egbaland. She presented documents alleging abuse of authority by the Alake, who had been granted the right to collect the taxes by his colonial suzerain, the Government of the United Kingdom. He subsequently relinquished his crown for a time due to the affair. She also oversaw the successful abolishing of separate tax rates for women. In 1953, she founded the Federation of Nigerian Women Societies, which subsequently formed an alliance with the Women’s International Democratic Federation.

Ransome-Kuti campaigned for women’s votes. She was for many years a member of the ruling National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) party, but was later expelled when she was not elected to a federal parliamentary seat.[citation needed] She was treasurer for the NCNC Western Working Committee and later President of the NCNC Women’s Organization in the Western Region. After her suspension, her political voice was diminished due to the direction of national politics, as both of the more powerful members of the opposition, Awolowo and Adegbenro, had her support close by. However, Ransome-Kuti continued her activism. In the 1950s, she was one of the few women nominated to the house of chiefs. At the time, this was one of her homeland’s most influential bodies.

She founded the Egba or Abeokuta Women’s Union along with Grace Eniola Soyinka (her sister-in-law and the mother of the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka). This organisation is said to have once had a membership of 20,000 women. Among other things, Ransome-Kuti organised workshops for illiterate market women. She continued to campaign against taxes and price controls.

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Travel Ban

During the Cold War and before the independence of her country, Ransome-Kuti traveled widely and angered the Nigerian as well as British and American governments by her contacts with the Eastern Bloc. This included her travel to the former USSR, Hungary and China, where she met Mao Zedong. In 1956, her passport was not renewed by the government because it was said that “it can be assumed that it is her intention to influence … women with communist ideas and policies.” She was also refused a U.S. visa because the American government alleged that she was a communist.

Prior to independence she founded the Commoners Peoples Party in an attempt to challenge the ruling NCNC, ultimately denying them victory in her area. She received 4,665 votes to the NCNC’s 9,755, thus allowing the opposition Action Group (which had 10,443 votes) to win. She was one of the delegates who negotiated Nigeria’s independence with the British government.

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Death

In old age her activism was overshadowed by that of her three sons, who provided effective opposition to various Nigerian military juntas. In 1978 Ransome-Kuti was thrown from a third-floor window in her son Fela’s compound, a commune known as the Kalakuta Republic, when it was stormed by one thousand armed military personnel. She lapsed into a coma in February of that year, and died on 13 April 1978 as a result of her injuries.

After Ransome-Kuti’s death, Fela took her coffin and travelled nearly twenty kilometers to Dodan Barracks in Lagos (then Nigeria’s Supreme Military Headquarters), leaving the coffin at the gate in an attempt to shame the government. The invasion, her death, and the movement of the coffin is detailed in his song “Coffin for Head of State”.

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Proposed N5000 Note Controversy

In 2012, the Nigerian government had proposed the inclusion of Ransome-Kuti’s image on the new N5000 currency note. In August of that year, Ransome-Kuti’s grandson, musician Seun Kuti, stated to media that he found the proposal “ludicrous to say the least”, in light of the government’s role in his grandmother’s death. Kuti said that his family had never received an apology for the assault on their compound, with official government statements declaring that Ransome-Kuti had been attacked by “1000 unknown soldiers”. As of 3 September 2012, the Nigerian government neither responded to his request nor apologized. Several protest groups formed on social media adding pressure for a government apology. The N5000 proposal was later withdrawn by the Nigerian government.

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Achievements

1. Took part in the pre-independence conferences that laid the groundwork for Nigeria’s First Republic
2. One of the women appointed to the native House of Chiefs, serving as an Oloye of the Yoruba people
3. Ranking member of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons
4. Treasurer and President Western Women Association of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons
5. President of the Abeokuta Women’s Union from 1946–1978.
6. Leader of Commoners Peoples Party
7. Leader of Nigeria Women’s Union.
8. First woman to drive a car in Nigeria
9. Winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1970

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Cultural Depiction and Legacy

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was portrayed in the 2014 film October 1 by Deola Sagoe.

Ransome-Kuti is one of the most prominent figures in Nigerian history and inspired women across Nigeria through her brave acts and most notably her fight for women in the country. Some say that she paved the way for women in Nigeria to have better lives.

We here at All Naija Entertainment wishes her Happy Birthday, and may her soul rest in peace. Vamos Legend!