27/06/2022
On February 18th 1977, Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti was visiting her musician son Fela Anikulapo Kuti when armed soldiers stormed the residence at Ikeja, they had come in their usual manner to raid the house where Fela lives and as usual, they destroyed properties and assaulted residents. Fela and his brother Bekolari were beaten and severely injured. The soldiers who remains unknown till today threw Olufunmilayo from the second floor window, she was hospitalized and went into a coma before she later died on April 13th 1978 of her injuries.
Born Frances Abigail Oluwafunmilayo Thomas on 25th October 1900 in Abeokuta to Chief Daniel Olumeyuwa Thomas of the Jibolu-Taiwo family. Her mother who was a dress maker was Lucretia Phyllis Omoyeni Adeosolu. Though it was uncommon for Nigerian families to invest in female education, Funmilayo was one of six girls to be admitted at the Abeokuta Grammar School where she attended for her secondary education from 1914-1919.
From 1919 to 1922, she went abroad and attended a finishing school for girls in Cheshire, England, where she learned elocution, music, dressmaking, French, and various domestic skills. It was there that she made the permanent decision to use her shortened Yoruba name, Funmilayo, instead of her Christian name Frances. She returned afterwards to Nigeria and took a teaching job in Abeokuta.
On January 20th 1925, Funmilayo got married to a school principal who was several years her senior at Abeokuta Grammar School named Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, together, they had 4 children; Dolupo, Olikoye, Olufela and Bekolari. Oludotun later became a co-founder of both the Nigeria Union of Teachers and of the Nigerian Union of Students.
After marriage, Funmilayo quitted her teaching job to focus on other things, in 1928 she established one of the first preschool classes in Nigeria. Around the same time, she started a club for young women of elite families to encourage their "self-improvement", while also organizing classes for illiterate women.
In 1932, Funmilayo helped form the Abeokuta Ladies Club, a club focused on charity work, sewing, catering and adult education classes. By the 1940s, however, the club was moving in a more political direction. Inspired by an illiterate friend who asked her for help learning how to read, Funmilayo began organizing literacy workshops for market women through the club, and she subsequently gained a greater understanding of social and political inequalities faced by many Nigerian women.
In 1946, along with other women like her husband's niece Grace Eniola Soyinka who is the mother of Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, the club was renamed Abeokuta Women Union with membership open to all women in Abeokuta. The organization turned its focus to fighting unfair price controls and taxes imposed on market women, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti became the AWU's president.
Funmilayo Ransome Kuti's first well known political activity was when she led AWU to protest against tax imposition on women in Abeokuta. The then Alake of Egba land Oba Ladapo Samuel Ademola had imposed a special tax on market women, proceeds then went directly to market supervisors called Parakoyis. After failing to appeal to the British to remove the Alake and halt the tax, AWU members led by Funmilayo refused to pay taxes and staged long vigils outside the Alake's palace, they also arranged audit of the Sole Native Authority System finance records.
In 1947 when the women were forbidden from organizing demonstrations in Abeokuta without permits, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti and her AWU declared their activities as "Picnics" and "Festivals", this drew thousands of participants who had altercations with the police. Funmilayo was quoted to have told a British district officer who shouted at her to keep her women shut that "You may have been born but you were not bred! Would you speak to your mother like that?"
Funmilayo Ransome Kuti was banned from entering the Alake's palace in 1948 for any political meeting, the Alake likened Funmilayo's AWU to "Vipers that cannot be tamed" From January to March 1948, AWU continued protesting tax, fighting with petitions, press conferences and demonstrations, this yielded result in April of 1948 when the Alake finally suspended the tax on women and appointed a special committee to look into AWU's complaints.
Funmilayo Ransome Kuti was not only an Abeokuta hero, she was part of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons party's delegation to London to protest a proposed Nigerian constitution in 1947. She gave speeches about Nigerian women's issues at the London Women's Parliamentary Committee, the National Federation of Women's Institutes, and other organizations.
When a Western Provinces conference was held in Nigeria in 1949 to discuss a new national constitution, Funmilayo represented Abeokuta and was once again the only woman involved in the discussions. She made strong arguments for the inclusion of women's enfranchisement and against the creation of an indirect electoral system. Meanwhile, due to the AWU's efforts, the Alake temporarily abdicated his throne in 1949.
In May 1949, Funmilayo proposed the creation of the Nigerian Women's Union (NWU) in order to better support women's rights and enfranchisement across the country. The AWU supported her proposal, and the organization subsequently became the Abeokuta branch of the NWU.
As founding member of NCNC Party, Funmilayo ran as NCNC candidate for regional assembly in 1951 but was unsuccessful, a special tax requirement for voters meant that most of her supporters who were majorly women were disqualified from participating. In 1953, she organized a conference in Abeokuta to discuss women suffrage, political representation, political inclusion, improved educational opportunities as well as creation of new social services and healthcare, over 400 women delegates attended the two days event.
She also had some altercations with foreign governments; in 1957, the British government failed to renew her passport while the US government in 1958 denied her an American visa saying she had too many communist connections. Although she held a press conference denying any communist link and even protesting to government officials, her passport was only renewed when Nigeria gained independence in 1960.
In 1965, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti received the national honor of membership of the Order of the Niger while the University of Ibadan honored her with an honorary doctorate of laws in 1968, she also received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1970. She was also appointed chairman of the advisory board of education by western Nigeria state government in 1969 and also served as consultant to the federal ministry of education on recruitment of teachers from other countries.
In the early 1970s, inspired by her musician son Olufela, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti changed her surname to Anikulapo Kuti to reflect a discarding of colonial european influences. Anikulapo is a Yoruba word which translates to having death in a pouch. Some of her surviving grandchildren includes Yeni Anikulapo Kuti, Femi Anikulapo Kuti, Kunle Anikulapo Kuti, Seun Anikulapo Kuti amongst others.
