Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti:Nigeria’s First Female Driver and Revolutionary Leader

Women have been known to play a significant role in nation-building and positively influencingsociety. Some women who have created a legacy in the history of Nigeria include:

Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti

Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was also known as Funmilayo Aníkúlápó-Kuti. Born to Chief Daniel Olumuyuwa Thomas, a member of the aristocratic Jibolu-Taiwo family, and Lucretia Phyllis Omoyeni Adeosolu on 25th October 1900 in Abeokuta, Ogun State was a part of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate of the British Empire.

At a time when it was uncommon for Nigerian families to invest in much education for girls, Funmilayo’s parents believed in the importance of education for both boys and girls. This led to her enrollment in school, and she was the first female student to be admitted into Abeokuta Grammar School for her secondary education in 1914. This school was initially open to boys alone.

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 other domestic skills. In a likely response to experiences of racism in England, she opted for her shortened Yoruba name, Funmilayo, instead of her Christian name, Frances.

On her return to Abeokuta, she worked as a teacher, arranging literacy classes for lower-incomeand illiterate women. Around the same time, she set up a club for upper-class women in society,where she taught them personal development and how to be the best version of themselves.

On 20 January 1925, Funmilayo married Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, her long-time sweetheart who studied at the Abeokuta Grammar School several years before her. While she was still in school, the duo developed a friendship that culminated in marriage.

His marriage with Funmilayo was characterised by equality and genuine mutual respect. Israel worked as a school principal and firmly believed in bringing people together and bridging ethnic and regional divides. Like his wife, he co-founded the Nigeria Union of Teachers and the Nigerian Union of Students. Some years into their marriage, the couple bought a secondhand car from England, and Funmilayo learnt how to drive, making her the first female to drive a car in Nigeria. She and her husband had four children –  a daughter named Dolupo and sons Olikoye“Koye“, Olufela “Fela”, and Bekololari “Beko” (1940)

In 1932, Funmilayo founded the Abeokuta Ladies Club. The club prioritised charity work, sewing, catering, and adult education programs, with most of its early members being middle-class Christians. As her popularity grew, she developed friendships with women from different socioeconomic backgrounds of society, including those from the lower classes. Inspired by an illiterate acquaintance who requested her help learning to read, Funmilayo started arranging literacy classes for market women (mostly lower class) through the club, and she developed a better awareness of the social and political disadvantages that many Nigerian women experienced.

As Funmilayo’s political influence expanded, she became involved in the Nigerian independence movement. She attended conferences and joined international delegations to discuss proposed national constitutions. She also led the establishment of the Nigerian Women’s Union and the Federation of Nigerian Women’s Societies.

However, by the 1940s, the club was moving towards a more political agenda. 1944, she prevented local officials from confiscating rice from market women on false pretences.

In 1946, the club was formally renamed the Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU), which she co-founded with Grace Eniola Soyinka (her husband’s niece and the mother of Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka) and was now open to all women in Abeokuta. The organisation now focused on fighting unjust price controls, advocating for women’s rights, particularly the right to vote, seeking improved representation of women in local governing bodies, and ending unfair taxes placed on market women. The union gained widespread acceptance among the women and eventually grew to represent 20,000 official members, with up to 100,000 additional supporters. Funmilayo and other officially educated members spoke Yoruba and wore traditional Yoruba dress to union meetings and functions to unite women and minimise class rivalry.

Funmilayo’s first well-known political action was leading the AWU in a protest, an illegal charge on market women levied directly on market supervisors. Following the formation of the Egba Native Administration in 1914, Abeokuta’s traditional king, Alake Ademola II, imposed levies on women under indirect colonial control. After their request to British authorities to remove the Alake and end the tax failed, Funmilayo and the Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU) changed their strategy. They circulated petitions in newspapers, refused to pay taxes in public, staged vigils outside Alake’s palace, and organised an audit of the Sole Native Authority System’s (SNA) financial records. They aimed to remove the tax on women and ensure women’s representation in the SNA’s executive branch.

By late 1947, Abeokuta authorities had banned women from organising parades or demonstrations, denying them permission. In response, Funmilayo and her partner organiserslabelled their gatherings “picnics” and “festivals,” attracting up to 10,000 people and occasionally battling with police. Funmilayo trained women to handle tear gas thrown at them during their protest, while the AWU provided legal assistance to detained members. During one confrontation, Funmilayo retaliated against a British district officer’s effort to manage against a British district officer’s effort to control her group, demonstrating her defiance.

Tensions erupted in February 1948 when the Alake disparaged AWU women and banned Ransome-Kuti from the palace. AWU members then blocked the palace’s entrance, preventing a British district officer from leaving. The confrontation ended when Ransome-Kuti was forcibly removed from the officer’s car. Public sympathy for the women increased, and by late April 1948, following repeated protests, the Alake stopped the women’s tax and formed a committee to resolve the AWU’s concerns. The AWU’s actions eventually resulted in the temporary resignation of the Alake in early 1949.

She upheld socialist ideals, defining herself as an “African Socialist” Although she did not consider herself a communist, she was “not frightened or repelled by communism either”.

Funmilayo was denied a visa to the United States in 1958 because of alleged Communist affiliations, despite her appeals and the support of high-profile friends. Her passport was renewed only after Nigeria gained independence in 1960. After being refused the opportunity to run as an NCNC candidate in 1959, she ran independently and split the vote, resulting in expulsion from the party. She then formed the Commoners’ People’s Party, which collapsed within a year.

Nigeria implemented universal adult suffrage after independence, though the Northern Region did not grant women the right to vote until 1976. Nigeria’s early independence was marred by political conflict, culminating in a 1966 military coup. Funmilayo supported the coup but opposed the subsequent violence. She was involved with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, where she served as president of the Nigerian branch from 1963.

Ransome-Kuti was inducted into the Niger Order in 1965. In 1968, she was conferred an honorary doctorate of law from the University of Ibadan. The Western Nigeria state government nominated her as chairperson of the Advisory Board of Education in 1969, and she later worked as an international teacher recruitment consultant for the Federal Ministry of Education.

She received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1970 and, during that period, informally changed her surname to “Anikulapo-Kuti“, influenced by her son Fela, who rejected colonial European influences. “Anikulapo” means “hunter who carries death in a pouch” or “warrior who carries strong protection” in Yoruba.

In her later years, Anikulapo-Kuti’s son Fela, a musician and activist, became a vocal critic of the Nigerian military government, prompting multiple arrests and raids. On February 18, 1977, nearly 1,000 soldiers stormed Fela’s compound, assaulting residents and destroying property. Anikulapo-Kuti, who was there during the raid, was thrown from a second-floor window and suffered severe injuries. She was hospitalised and subsequently went into a coma, passing away on April 13, 1978.

Her funeral in Abeokuta was widely attended, with many market women and traders closing their shops to honour her memory. She was remembered as “a progressive revolutionary” and “a Pan-African visionary,” leaving a lasting legacy among the women of Nigeria.