Statecraft & Independence
Distinguished
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti
1900 – 1978
Organised Nigeria's market women and broke a colonial tax
Distinguished is level 3 of 4 in the Nigeria Hall of Fame: sustained excellence over a career, widely honoured at home. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
She turned a women's club into a mass union that forced the colonial authorities to back down over taxes on market women — one of the most effective popular campaigns of the era.
Ransome-Kuti helped form the Abeokuta Ladies Club in 1932. By 1946 it had become the Abeokuta Women's Union, and under her presidency it campaigned against price controls and the unfair treatment of market women, and for better education, sanitation and healthcare.
She was the mother of the musician Fela Kuti. During a military raid on her son's compound in 1977 she was thrown from a second-storey window; she never recovered from her injuries and died in Lagos in April 1978.
She was the mother of the musician Fela Kuti. During a military raid on her son's compound in 1977 she was thrown from a second-storey window; she never recovered from her injuries and died in Lagos in April 1978.
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