OME of the 
p i c t u r e s 
forming the 
proceeding 
album originated 
from 
Mrs Olufunmilayo 
Ransome-Kuti's 
private collection. They tell 
in part the stories of the 
Kuti family beginning from 
Fela Ransome (Anikulapo) 
Kuti's grandfather, Josiah, 
a Reverend canon under 
the Christian Missionary 
Society (CMS) whose ministry 
dates back to the turn 
of the century with headquarters 
in Ake, Abeokuta 
but also with evangelistic 
thrusts in other towns and 
villages in the province. 
Josiah's son, Oludotun 
Daodu also an ordained 
priest under the Anglican 
Communion was to pioneer 
and head one of the 
earliest privately run Secondary 
Grammar Schools 
in the entire region, 
Abeokuta Grammar 
School in Igbein 
Abeokuta, supported by 
his wife Olufunmilayo, 
who administered the junior 
section, of the school. 
Much of the family history 
is rendered in the autobiments 
etaoyrupny 
oy a cousin or me i\um>, me 
playwright Wole Soyinka in Ake The 
Years of Childhood ( Rex Collings 
1981, London). Soyinka himself a 
son of the headmaster of the Ake 
Mission School was raised in the Ake 
Parsonage, surroundeaby the Ake 
orchards and rockcrest buildings once 
inhabitedbytheveryRevJJ. Ransome- 
Kuti and before that, the Bishop Ajayi 
Notes by 
Dapo Adeniyi 
Crowther. Accounts of the events 
leading to the formation of the Egba 
Women's Union under the leadership 
of Mrs Olu (Funmilayo) Ransome kuti 
and Eniola Soyinka, the playwright's 
mother, along with the Union's initial 
literacy campaign among itsranks-to 
which Soyinka was enlisted as a boy 
instructor and latterly at the height of 
the crises as an errand boy-including 
a detailed report on the women's 
uprising itself, and others, abound in 
the narration. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No 2 GLENDORAr
RIGHT: 
The Reverend Josiah 
Ransome-Kuti. Fela once told 
the popular music scholar 
and guitarist, John Collins 
(see Diary on the Black 
President Film) that he was 
determined to undo the 
entire missionary work of his 
grandfather. 
LEFT: 
Mrs Olufunmilayo Ransome-Kuti''s mother. 
BELOW: 
Mrs Kuti and a friend, at home within the AGS 
compound. Soyinka and other sources recount the 
high level of discipline at the AGS as evidenced by 
the neat lawns and whitewashed stones peeping 
in from the background of the photograph. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No 2 GLENDORA
ABOVE: 
Reverend Oludotun Daodu Ransome Kuti (front row, middle with members of staff of 
Abeokuta Grammar School, AGSJ. 
BELOW: 
Reverend and Mrs Kuti (middle) with the prefects of Abeokuta Grammar School. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol 2'No 2 GLENDORA.
LEFT: 
Mrs Kuti is reputed to be the first Nigerian 
woman ever to own and drive a motor 
car. 
BELOW: 
Rev Kuti addressing Egba chiefs on 
matters surrounding the welfare of the 
peasants of Abeokuta and Ijebu-Ode. 
NEXT PAGE, TOP: 
Mr Somoye (the Dansaki Egba and vicepresident 
of the Majeobaje Society) 
speaking to the members of the women's 
union in the Ake Church square on 26th 
April, 1948. On the extreme right of 
photograph is the Ake cenotaph. 
NEXT PAGE, BOTTOM: 
Mrs Kuti visiting at Agenebode. Obviously 
the vision of mobilising the women was not 
restricted to Egbaland, providing a possible 
explanation for why the effects of the 
women's defiance of the colonial 
establishment in Egbaland rapidly carried 
through the Western region and was 
eventually routed into Nigeria's statutory 
books both as universal adult suffrage and 
abolition of poll tax on women. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2 GLENDORA •
African Quarttrly 
on ihtArtt 
v°> Wo 2 LGLENDORA"
ABOVE: 
Mobilising all classes of Egba women, both the aroso or the illiterate, and the onikaba, the educated. Great 
speeches by the •women's leaders are all included in Wole Soyinka's eye-witness accounts recorded in Ake. 
(Soyinka told the writer - during the scripting of Ake for Nigerian Television - that the speeches were 
doubled-checked with his mother Eniola, 'the Wild Christian.') 
BELOW (left and right): 
Incarcerated women from orile Oko in lle-lfe prison. These pictures are dated February 13 1949. 
*
I
^i 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2 GLENDORA •
Police and palace 
guards rehearsing in 
Abeokuta to keep the 
peace at the height of 
the women's uprising. 
Loyalists to the ousted 
Alake of Egbaland, 
Oba Ademola, mainly 
palace guards and 
chiefs keep vigil just 
before the king's 
successful ouster. 
African Quarterly | 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2 I OLENDORA.
Mrs & Rev Kuti receiving the first Nigerian 
premier, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa most 
probably sometime in 1961. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
GLENDORAr.v.w[ voi. 2/No. 2
Mrs Kuti in the midst of a 1963 
women's conference in the USSR. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No 2 GLENDORA,
ABOVE: 
Fela and Remi (formerly Remi Taylor) Ransome Kuti in London, probably taken in 1960. 
photgraph was sent by Fela to mum, marked 'from Fela and Remi' in Fela's blue ink cursive. 
NEXT PAGE, TOP: 
Ceremonies marking the anniversary of Rev Kuti's death, probably 1963. Mrs. Kuti is 5th from 
left, Fela newly returned from England holding son Femi in 6th place. Mrs Eniola Soyinka and her 
own daughter Folabo in the 7th and 8th positions. 
NEXT PAGE, BOTTOM LEFT: 
The older Kuti boys, Olikoye (Nigeria's former Health Minister, on the left) and (Olufela), 
donning Abeokuta pupil uniforms. 
NEXT PAGE, BOTTOM RIGHT: 
Rev and Mrs Kuti's grandchild, Frances aged 3, under the watchful eyes of 'auntie Betty/ 
Beaumaris, 1953. Frances latterly Frances Kuboye the well-known singer and television hostess 
died in the week following the burial of her uncle, Fela. 
Afrcan Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2 GLENDORA .
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2 GLENDORA
RIGHT: 
Anniversary 
supplications at St 
David's. Fela 2nd from 
right at front row. 
LEFT: 
Tombside benediction for Rev 
Kuti, Fela praying 3rd from 
left with Remi. Mrs Kuti is 4th 
from right. 
BELOW: 
Church foyer pose. Fela and 
Remi (front row right) with 
daughter, Sola. Sola also 
died in Lagos, of cancer, in 
the weeks following the 
death of her father. 
• 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2 GLENDORA
Fela on keyboards, right, performing to the pupils of Mrs Kvti's school. 
African Quarterly 
on the Arts 
Vol. 2/No. 2 GLENDORA,