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11 Things To Know About The First Woman To Drive A Car In Nigeria
- Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, the first woman to drive a car in Nigeria, was a teacher, political campaigner, women’s rights activist and traditional aristocrat in Nigeria.
- She was an avid traveler. She had traveled to many countries around the world.
- Prior to Nigeria’s independence – specifically during the Cold War – she traveled to the former USSR, Hungary and China, where she met Mao Zedong – the communist revolutionary.
- Her trip to countries in the Eastern bloc angered the Nigerian colonialist government, as well as British and American governments
- In 1956, the government did not renew her passport because it was believed that her intention was to influence Nigerians, especially women, with communist ideas and policies.
- She was also refused a U.S. visa because the American government alleged that she was a communist.
- She was one of the delegates who negotiated Nigeria’s independence with the British government.
- She was a winner of the Lenin Peace Prize. The Prize was awarded by the Soviet Government to notable individuals, prominent Communists and supporters of the Soviet Union who were not Soviet citizens.
- In February 1978, she was thrown down from the window of a 3-storey building (Kalakuta Republic) belonging to her musician son, Fela. This happened when a thousand military personnel stormed the building. She lapsed into a coma and later died on 13 April 1978, from injuries she sustained from the fall.
- Sometime in 2012, to immortalize her, her picture was being considered to be on the proposed N5000 note. The Nigerian government later withdrew the idea for a N5000 note.
- After her death, her son Fela took her coffin to Dodan Barracks – the then seat of power and Nigeria’s Supreme Military Headquarters and left it at the gate. This was done to humiliate the Obasanjo-led military government for the invasion of his property that led to his mother’s death. The invasion inspired Fela’s song “Coffin for Head of State”.
