Gender, Justice, and the Environment: Connecting the Dots

I would like to dedicate this lecture to Olufunso Yoloye and Wangari Maathai, both of whom contributed to this paper and both of whom passed away on September 25, 2011.

In this paper I attempt to connect several dots, specifically my research on African women’s activism, environmental justice, and climate change. The book on which I am currently working is tentatively entitled “‘The Great Upheaval’: Women, Taxes and Nationalist Politics in Abeokuta (Nigeria), 1945–1951.” The study examines the struggles of Nigerian women to shape the nationalist agenda and their setbacks as the country moved decisively toward independence. At its core lies an analysis of a tax revolt launched by women in Abeokuta in 1947. The Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU), under the leadership of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (the mother of the late musician Fela Kuti), began a protracted protest against a tax increase. This revolt is well known in Nigerian popular history, and many people outside of Nigeria were introduced to it in Wole Soyinka’s memoir, Ake: The Years of Childhood (1981:164–218).

By the time the women’s protests ended in July 1948, they had succeeded in getting the colonial government to temporarily abolish taxes on women and they had forced the traditional king and Sole Native Authority, Alake Ademola, into exile. The tax revolt was the beginning rather than the end of a process for Ransome-Kuti, built on the AWU’s success in launching a national women’s organization, the Nigerian Women’s Union (NWU), in 1949. The NWU had branches throughout Nigeria, thus knitting together a wide cross-section of women’s organizations to present a uniform set of issues and concerns to the newly formed political parties.¹ Based on the strength of the NWU and the emergence of other women’s organizations, Ransome-Kuti and the NWU organized what she described as a “parliament of the women of Nigeria” in August 1953. Four hundred delegates from across Nigeria met in Abeokuta, August 5–7, and at the conclusion of this meeting they established the Federation of Nigerian Women’s Societies (FNWS) (Johnson-Odim & Mba 1997:101).

The NWU and its constituent organizations brought a gender critique to both local and national developments. For example, member organizations continued to challenge poll taxes and fight for a reduction in bride price in each region, while Ransome-Kuti took these issues to the Western Region constitutional conference in 1949.² Her actions resulted in many letters of praise. For example,

We, the undersigned, the accredited representatives of the Women Community in Ibadan, beg to show our appreciation of your speech during the sittings of the Western Regional Conference at Ibadan recently, when you fearlessly and freely champion the cause of women in Nigeria in general, and in the Western Province in particular.

You have bravely revealed to the House all our present sufferings, and the need for allowing women to rub shoulders with men in the Councils of our land, the exorbitant income tax imposed upon us without giving us chance to explain our financial positions, and so many other things which you have made the House to know about us. . . . ³

Ransome-Kuti was engaged in politics at the national level as well. She was a founding member of the NCNC—the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon. She was the only woman on a seven-member NCNC delegation that included Nnamdi Azikiwe and toured Nigeria in 1947 condemning the current constitution, the Richards Constitution.⁴ After the tour, they visited colonial officials in England demanding constitutional changes. This agitation produced results quickly. In 1948 the British Labor government announced a series of changes that radically altered the terrain for all political organizations across Nigeria, including a plan to revise the Richards Constitution early and to seek the input of Nigerians.⁵

This announcement made clear that self-government would unfold much sooner than anyone had anticipated. By 1950 the structure of the new constitution was taking shape and it was evident that it would preserve the old regions and greatly increase their power...