Interview with Olutola Oluyemisi Ransome-Kuti

Abstract

Olutola Oluyemisi Ransome-Kuti was born on December 18, 1947. She was an only child and grew up with her male cousins, including Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka, late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, and late Beko Ransome-Kuti, all of whom were activists. Today, she is the matriarch of the Ransome-Kuti family. Ransome-Kuti was educated in both the United Kingdom and Nigeria, where she earned her degrees in business management, aesthetics, counseling, and human resources management. She was involved in the struggle for democracy in Nigeria. In addition to walking out with other civil society organizers, she became so frustrated with the late military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, that she mounted increased pressure on him. She wrote to the Queen of England and British government threatening to return the MBE honor awarded to her late father if Britain continued to stay neutral. She was arrested and sent to prison on her way to attend the Beijing Women’s Conference (1995). Ransome-Kuti founded the Nigeria Network of NGOs, an umbrella organization that coordinates and regulates the activities of NGOs in Nigeria. She once ran Girl Watch, an organization that focused on educating young Nigerian girls from low socio-economic backgrounds. In 2006, the World Bank appointed her as the civil society advisor on Nigeria’s working groups on millennium development goals and poverty eradication.