Women
have fulfilled important functions in Lagos society and played
significant roles in its political development. No study of the
history of Lagos could be complete without a special focus on
women in Lagos.
Pre-colonial
Lagos.
In
Yoruba land generally, only women were engaged in marketing in
the local town markets and both men and women carried out long-distance
trade. Men were the farmers; women assisted only in the harvesting.
Both men and women engaged in crafts, the main women’s crafts
were weaving, dyeing, spinning cotton, pottery, bead making and
processing foodstuffs. Lagos being a sea-side settlement, her
pre-colonial economy was based on fishing and trade by canoes
along the network of rivers. The men were responsible for catching
the fish while the women were responsible for the processing,
preservation and marketing of the fish. Women in Lagos were involved
in the same crafts as elsewhere in Yoruba land about the products
were sold. All women were expected to trade and the profits belonged
to the women who could use them as they wished. Women controlled
their own economic activities. Each craft had its own women’s
guild and in the markets, women selling a particular commodity
were organized in an association. The association was responsible
for fixing prices and for controlling the movement of goods to
and from other markets.
It
was possible for women to gain as much wealth as men in trade
and when the scope of trade expanded to include the sale of human
beings, women in Lagos were also involved. During the reign of
Oba Akinsemoyin, a Lagos woman, Fajimilola, was one of the biggest
slave traders and founded Oja Ita Faji a market named after her.
In recognition of her achievements, Fajimilola was given a chieftaincy
which was reserved for women.
It
was also during Akinsemoyin’s reign that another chieftaincy
title reserved for women was created the Erelu, in honour of Akinsemoyin’s
sister Erelu Kuti. The belonged to the first group of chiefs in
Lagos, the Akarigbere group of white cap chiefs. The Erelu was
the only high ranking female chief appointed by the Oba and was
a Lagos counterpart of the Iyalode title and office which existed
in many Yoruba towns. Therefore the Erelu was seen as representing
the women of Lagos in the government. She was the only women apart
from the Oba’s family who had direct access to the Oba.
Although this representation of women in the government did not
reflect the fact that women constituted half of the population,
it did mean that women constituted half of the population, it
did mean that women not only could run their own affairs but could
participate directly, through the Erelu, in communal decision
making. Moreover, as in other part of Yoruba land, women were
deeply involved in the religious life of the palace and community
and an Oba could no be installed or buried without the presence
of certain priestesses.
By
the early 19th century, the Oba had created a committee known
as the Ilu which was a unit of the iga (palace) and was responsible
for maintaining law and order in the town. The market women’s
associations were represented on the ilu and were in charge of
the markets. With the development of Lagos as an important port
for trade with the Europeans, the number and scope of the markets
increased. More and more Yoruba from outside were drawn to Lagos
by this economic opportunities. Also, from the 1820s a trickle
of repatriate began to flow back to Lagos from Freetown and Brazil
which increased in number in the 1840s and 1850s. The women among
them introduced new skill, crafts, occupations and lifestyles
to the Yoruba women of Lagos. Most of the women returnees were
Christians, literate in English or Portuguese and earned their
living by baking, catering, laundering, dressmaking and teaching.
These Saro and Amaro women regarded themselves as belonging to
a different class to the indigenous women and felt themselves
closer to the Europeans, particularly the British, who began to
play an ever increasing role in Lagos.
Nineteenth
Century Colonial Lagos.
There
were several women prominent in trade in the early colonial period
in Lagos but the most important was the famous and much discussed
Efunroye Tinubu. Although not Lagos born, Tinubu rose to great
power and authority in the Lagos political and economic system
and demonstrated that there were no disabilities for women per
se in Yoruba and Lagos society. Tinubu began her career in Badagry
as a trader in salt and palm oil. Profit from the middleman trade,
between the Europeans (tobacco and salt) and the hinterland (palm
oil) enabled Tinubu to expand into the strategic areas of slave,
arms and ammunition. By the 1850s, Tinubu was-
“The leading middleman in the interior at Lagos
Over 5000 pond was advanced to her for palm oil by various merchants”
In
Badagry, Tinubu had used her wealth and influence to build up
a faction dedicated to the support of Akintoye and his return
to the throne at Lagos. When in 1851 Akintoye returned to Lagos
through British intervention, Tinubu had so much influenced over
Akintoye that in 1853 two chiefs of Lagos rose in rebellion, allegedly
in opposition to her dominance over Akintoye. When Akintoye was
succeeded bi his son Dosunmu in 1853, Tinubu’s influence
was even stronger but was now resented by the British consul,
Campbell, who accused her of acting as middleman between the European
and Brazilian slave dealings and the Egba. Campbell wished to
encourage the Sierra Leone immigrants and the “emancipados”
from Brazil and Cuba whereas Tinubu saw them as economic rivals
and as threats to the traditional system. Tinubu’s opposition
to the British and the “outsider” reflected her “nationalist”
outlook, she “was the only important trader independent
of mission influences”, and later she identified herself
with the independent Egba United Board of Management government
in Abeokuta. Eventually Campbell forced Dosunmu to expel Madam
Tinubu in 1856, and she returned to Abeokuta. Tinubu was thus
the first woman to play a part in resistance to British rule.
One
of the reasons Tinubu was able to play such an important role
in Lagos and later Egba was because of the disturbed nature of
the times. Several other women rose to prominence during the mid
19th century period of the Yoruba wars and resistance to the initial
establishment of colonial rule. When Lagos became effectively
under British control administratively as well as military there
was a long period of stability in which no individual woman emerged
as a political leader. It was not until the period of nationalist
agitation against the agencies of colonialism in the 1940s that
charismatic women leaders emerged again in Lagos and Abeokuta.
Twentieth
Century Colonial Lagos.
Elite
Women
The end of the 19th century and early 20th century marked
the period of the dominance of the elite women in Lagos. As
indicated above, these women were the wives and daughters
of the Sierra Leonean and Brazilian repatriates. They were
Christians, literate, some educated in England and they belonged
to a social class which was closely integrated with the colonial
establishment and known as the “collaborating establishment”.
From this position they had access to the administration and
their criticism of its policies was at the least listened
to.
One
of the most notable of such women was Charlotte Olajumoke
Obasa. She was active in education and social work in Lagos
from the 1890’s and in 1923 formed the Lagos Women’s
League whose objectives went beyond social welfare. The League
sought to extend educational provisions for women, persuade
government to employ more women, improve the working and living
conditions of men and women and the improvement and expansion
of medical facilities in Lagos. The membership of the League
comprised elite educated women and their usual method was
to write petitions to government. However, on one issue the
League gained mass support and adopted a more militant strategy.
This was the proposal by the government in 1930 to close down
Ikoyi cemetery for Africans on the grounds that there was
no room left and request that Africans use the Atan cemetery
at Yaba instead. The Lagos Women’s League spearheaded
the agitation against this proposal. Following a meeting on
5 August, 1930, the league wrote a letter to the commissioner
for the Colony which Mrs. Obasa personally carried to his
office. The letter attacked the proposal on practical grounds,
pointing out that Atan cemetery was so far away that the costs
of transportation would be prohibitive, and it requested that
parts of the old cemetery be reopened
The
Commissioner hah the letter read to the Lagos Town Council,
which set up a committee to inquire further. The majority
report of the committee advised that there was room only for
Christian burials in the Ikoyi Cemetery, that the Muslims
and pagans (and non Christians European, lest there seemed
to be racial discrimination)should be buried at Atan, and
that the council should buy two motor lorries to reduce transport
costs. The League refused to accept this report, and in a
second letter of 15 January 1931 to the commissioner, it strongly
criticized the council. As a result of the agitation by the
League the government reopened Ikoyi cemetery.
The
Lagos Women’s League was actively concerned with health
and social conditions in Lagos, with the education and employment
of women, and with improving conditions in the markets and
of market women. On several issues it succeeded in influencing
government policy but the League did not function as a political
body. In 1944, leadership of the elite women of Lagos passed
from Mrs. Obasa to her cousin Mrs. Oyinkan Abayomi, who formed
a more explicitly political and feminist organization, the
Women’s party. Although attempts were made to open branches
in several towns in the province, the Women’s party
remained a Lagos based and Lagos oriented party. Its members
were all Yoruba, mainly Lagosians and elite in birth or marriage.
But the Women’s party made strenuous efforts to champion
the cause of the market women of Lagos and to include the
market women in its activities. It campaigned ceaselessly
to improve educational facilities for girls, employment proposals
for women and social conditions in Lagos. The party contested
the Lagos Town Council elections in 1950. it maintained a
pro-government posture during the anti-colonial agitation
of the 1940s by the Nigeria National Democratic Party (NNDP)
and the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroon (NDNC).
On
one issue, however, the women’s party joined forces
with the Lagos market women against the colonial administration
and that was the Pullen price control and marketing scheme
adopted as a war time emergency measure. The opposition to
the scheme by the market women and the Women’s Party
was effective that the government eventually acknowledge the
failure of the scheme and abandoned it.
Market
Women
Although men took over the key positions of the colonial economy
and displaced women from many traditional activities, markets
in Lagos remained largely in hands of women. They specialized
in foodstuffs, textiles, household provisions and related
commodities in both petty and large scale transactions. However,
whereas the women leaders of the markets had previously been
responsible for the overall supervision and maintenance of
the markets, these powers were taken away by the colonial
administration which appointed male market-masters employed
by municipal bodies to administer market. Until the 1950s
the great majority of the market women in Lagos were indigenes,
illiterate and Muslim. Each market had its own overall association
and commodity associations.
Through
their involvement with the ilu committee and religious affiliations,
the market women were strong supporters of the traditional
chiefs in Lagos. They had fully supported the chiefs in the
campaign against the water rate in 1908. The market women
closed the markets when meeting were held to protest that
water rate and they raised money to finance the campaign between
1908-1916.
Because
of the attachment to their traditional rulers, it was to be
expected that the market women would support the chief’s
political party-the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP)
- and the leader of the party, Herbert Macaulay. There is
no doubt that Macaulay’s charismatic personality won
him the deep affection and loyalty of the market women, but
this should not be understood to mean the women were primarily
supporters of Macaulay rather than of the programme of the
NNDP. Macaulay won the women’s support because he alone
of the native foreigners spoke to them in Yoruba, championed
the cause to the traditional chiefs to whom they were deeply
devoted, and supported the Jamat congregations, the fastest
growing Muslim sect in Lagos, which raised the status of women.
Macaulay
encouraged the Lagos market women to form an organization
embracing all the markets in Lagos, with one overall leader.
This facilitates his liaison with the market women and fitted
in with the group membership concept of the NNDP. He found
the kind of leader he was looking for in Madam Alimotu Pelewura,
with whom he developed a very close relationship, Macaulay
and the NNDP were prepared to support the market women in
a number of causes which affected their interests and it was
obviously in the best interests of the market women to support
the party which fought for them. By 1925, the NNDP had enrolled
one thousand women.
The
issue of the suspension, deposition and deportation of Eleko
Eshugbayi dominated Lagos politics from 1920 to 1931. Like
the agitation against the water rate, it mobilized the people
of Lagos, including the market women. The main supporters
of Eleko were the ilu committee, which undertook to support
the Eleko financially, and the Jamat Muslim. The market women
followed suits; they subscribed money to the Eleko fund and
flocked to the many mass meetings organized by the NNDP in
his defense. In some markets women would not sell to opponents
of the Eleko or buy from them.
In
1940, the government introduced the Income Tax Ordinance for
the Colony of Lagos whereby women whose incomes did not exceed
50 pounds per annum paid a flat rate tax of five shillings
while those whose incomes exceeded 50 pounds paid income tax
at the rate of the penny on each pound. The market women denounced
the ordinance and Oba Falolu and his chiefs supported the
market women’s claim that taxation of women was a violation
of custom. On the 16 December, 1940 all the markets in Lagos
were closed by the market women and a large number marched
to the office of the Commissioner for the Colony. Madam Pelewura
acted as the spokeswoman. From there they marched to Government
House and presented Governor Bourdillon with a petition which
had been written by Herbert Macaulay on their behalf and was
thumb printed by ninety-one women. The next day, the market
women organized a mass demonstration and a second meeting
with the Commissioner and finally as a result of the sustained
pressure from the women, supported by the NNDP and the chiefs,
the government amended the tax ordinance by raising the minimum
taxable income from 50 pounds to 10 pounds.
The
NNDP also supported the market women’s campaign against
the pullen price control scheme referred to above. Pelewura
was recognized not only by the market women but by the whole
of Lagos as the leader of the market women in the fight against
the government. In recognition of her services she was given
a special title by Oba Falulo on 23 February, 1947, the Otun
Eleru the first erelu of the common people of Lagos. The West
African pilot editorial of 24 February, 1947 described her
as not just leader of the market women but the mother of metropolitan
Lagos.
No
woman was ever an office holder in the NNDP but the market
women participated in election campaigns for the Lagos Town
Council and Legislative Council elections. When NNDP joined
the newly formed NCNC in 1944, most of the market women supported
the NCNC. During the NCNC tour of the country in 1946, Madam
Pelewura chaired the Lagos community’s reception fro
the team. It was initially proposed that Pelewura be a member
of the NCNC delegation to UK. In 1947 to protest against the
Richards constitution but she was too ill to travel. So another
woman Mrs. Ransome-Kuti was appointed to do so. The Lagos
market women donated money to the delegation’s fund.
The
death of Herbert Macaulay on 10 May 1946, during the NCNC’s
nationwide tour, was a terrible blow to the market women,
and he was deeply mourned by them. Though his death meant
the loss of a compelling unifying force in the NNDP, it did
not lead to break-up of the party or any immediate alienation
of the market women. They continued to belong to the party
and to associate with the NNDP/NCNC alliance.
During
the 1950 elections for the new Lagos Town Council, the NCNC
allied itself with the NNDP, the Lagos market women’s
Guild, and the Nigeria Labour Congress. The main contributions
of the market women were in campaigning, canvassing votes,
and raising funds. No market women sought or received nomination.
The two women who did stand as candidates were not market
women.
Women
in Party Politics (1950-1965)
As
mentioned above, many Lagos market women joined the NNDP-NCNC alliance.
In 1951, Mrs. Lawson formed the NCNC women’s wing in Lagos
was distinct from the NNDP market women affiliated to the NCNC.
In 1958, a separate NCNC market women’s association was set
up. Its leaders included former NNDP activists such as Madam Rabiatu
Alaso Oke, Alhaji Bintu Kotun and Madam Abiodun Ogundimu. After
1950, the political situation in Lagos became more complex and divisive,
and Macaulay’s absence was felt keenly by the NNDP and the
market women. The death of Madam Pelewura in March 1951 marked the
end of an era which had begun with Macaulay in 1908. her funeral
was attended by twenty five thousand people, including most of the
NNDP members and nearly all the market women. On the day of the
funeral markets were closed. However, at the funeral fighting broke
out between supporters of the NNDP and the Area Councils. After
Madam Pelewura, no other market woman was ever able to achieve such
complete leadership over what had been a basically heterogeneous
body of market women.
Area
Councils were set up by Oba Adele in 1949 and were based on the
ilu committee. The NCNC in Lagos was increasingly dominated by non-Lagosians,
Christians, modern elites with whom the traditional predominantly
Muslim market women in Lagos had little in common, and many market
women turned to Oba Adele and the Area Council to support for their
loyalties to their chiefs and to Islam.
The
elite women leaders of the women’s Party also joined the Area
Councils and than the Action Group (AG). The Women’s Party
allied itself to the Area Council in the 1950. Lagos Town Council
elections. The Party put forwards several candidates including Mrs.
Abayomi, who was one of the inaugural members of the AG in Lagos.
After 1950, the women’s Party ceased to exist as a separate
body and was absorbed into the Ag women’s association. The
Action group concentrated its attention on the market women in Lagos,
and its secretariat in Lagos maintained a corps of market supervisors”
(six men in 1958) who encouraged the formation of part groups in
the various markets. It supported the formation of an overall organization
in 1962, with the support of three quarters of the Lagos market
women, the Action Group was able to win the Lagos Town Council elections
at a time the national party was undergoing a severe crisis in the
Western Region. By 1964, there was a branch of the Action Group
in every major market in Lagos, each of which was equal in status
to the branches in the forty-two wards of the city.
Thus,
by 1951 the Lagos market women were split into opposing political
factions. The degree to which party affiliations divide the Lagos
market women can be illustrated by a brief case study of one issue,
the controversy in 1958 over the Lagos Town Counsil’s collection
of money, issued of permits and allocation of market stalls for
Ereko market and the proposed temporary Oko-Awo market. In 1958
the NCNC market women’s wing and the United Muslim Party women’s
wing petitioned the Governor-General charging that the Action Group
controlled Lagos Town Council was harassing non-Action Group market
women, and that though its agents were demanding money from them,
they (the agents) were allocating stalls know ledged that “the
situation has reached a peak where some market women and other interested
parties have lost confidence in the Council’s administrative
arrangements for allocating wares permits. However, the inquiry
did not establish that the sum of 18,000 pounds had been collected
(as alleged in the petition) and it did not order the refund of
the money collected or conclude that the Town Clerk had behaved
irregularly.
After
a 1962 slit in the Action Group, a new NNDP market women’s
association was formed in Lagos under the leadership of Chief Fagbenro-Beyioku,
the former secretary of the NCNC women’s wing and the NCNC
members of the Senate. The alaga (Chairman) of Tejuoso market, Mrs.
Modupeola Caxton-Martin, was the leader of the NNDP market women.
Conflicts between the Action Group and the NCNC market women in
Lagos continued until January 1966, when the civilian government
was overthrown by a military coup d’etat.
Women
in the Lagos Town City Council
The
first female member was Mrs. Abayomi who was appointed to represent
“the unenfranchised classes” in 1944. She remained a
member till 1950 and served in many LTC committees. As noted above
when the LTC was fully elected by universal adult suffrage, one
woman Mrs. Lawson, was elected in 1950. Mrs. Keziah Fashina was
elected in 1953 as an NCNC candidate and was returned unopposed
until 1965. Mrs. Elsie E\Femi-Paerse was elected as an AG/Area Council
candidates in 1955 and remained a member until she resigned in 1965.
In 1957, when the Governor General prescribed hat a woman is nominated
by the LTC to the Lagos Board of Education, Mrs. Femi Pearse was
nominated. In 1959 three women were elected as NCNC candidates and
in 1962 a woman, Madam Osenatu Gomez, chief Faji was elected as
one of the traditional members of the council. In 1966, during General
Ironsi’s regime, Mrs. Caxton-Martins was appointed a member
of the Lagos Island City Council committee and later a second woman
was appointed.
Al
though all the elected women members of the Lagos Town/City Council
were active members of either the NCNC or AG parties, none was ever
nominated by their party to contest regional or federal elections
into the legislatures. However, in 1955 Lady Abayomi was appointed
by the colonial government to the Western House of Assembly as a
second special member representing women. Her appointment lasted
only till 1956 when all the Assembly seats were contested in the
western region elections. No woman was elected.
Conclusion
The
brief survey of the political activities of women in Lagos from
the pre post-colonial periods documents the thesis that women as
individuals and as a group have played significant roles in Lagos
political history from Erelu to Abeyomi, Fajimola to Pelewura. Tinubu
to Obasa, Lagos has produced a number of outstanding charismatic
women. The continuity of women’s leadership is signified by
the retention of the traditions titles of erelu and faji. There
is also continuity in the forms of the women’s associations
even though the original functions were amended. Thus the women’s
associations remained intact from the pre-colonial period though
some of their functions and activities were absorbed by the town
council. Women in Lagos not only contributed enormously to the economic
development of Lagos but actually controlled the local marketing
system. It was their dominance of the market which provided their
main point of entry into traditional and modern political spheres.
Interpretations of the nature and objectives of market women’s
political activity differ. Breton believes that although the market
women’s organization were a crucial part of the political
communications network, their political power was marginal; whatever
influence potential may be attributed to their leaders it is largely
confined to matters related to trading, market stalls (they) seem
prepard to accept blindly the leadership of the party. Similarly,
Baker, agues that Lagos market women engaged in political activity
only when their own economic interests were involved, they were
not interested in wider community concerns affecting women and only
reacted to, rather than initiated, policies and actions. A more
generous view is given by Peil. The evidence from Lagos suggests
that market women there were (naturally) mainly concerned with markets
affairs but were well able evaluate various parties in terms of
their best interest. While they certainly have not won every battle,
they are considered a political force to be reckoned with.
The
author has taken an even wider perspective elsewhere, arguing that
the involvement of Lagos market women in the agitation against the
water rate, against taxation over the Eleko case and in the nationalist
activities of the NNDP and in the political parties reveals wider
political concerns than merely reactions to economic policies having
a direct impact on them. The water rate certainly affected the market
women’s economic interests but in the case of taxation, their
arguments against it were political and cultural as much as economic.
Likewise the objectives to the Pullen scheme were nationalist s
well as financial. While the market women assisted by Herbert Macaulay
in writing petitions, they organized their own campaign of meetings,
demonstrations and press release independently. Their support was
crucial to the effectiveness of the NNDP. The independence of their
political thinking is evidenced in the variety of political parties
supported by market women and the way the parties wooed the women.
Moreover,
political activity was not confined to the market women this chapter,
also focused on the role of the elite women in public life in Lagos.
They campaigned for improvements in the conditions of Lagos generally
as well as for women in particular and they personally did not stand
to benefit from their agitation. It was these women who formed the
first all female political party in Nigeria history.
The Brazilians (Aguda) and the Sierra Leonean (Saro) began to arrive
in Lagos in the 1830s. Following the abortion jihad in Brazil led
by African Muslim there in 1835, many were expelled from their country
and some came to Lagos. Christian’s slaves, who had earned
their freedom in that country began to arrive in Lagos in the 1840s
and for some still unknown reasons, suffered the confiscation of
their property by Kosoko. During that same period, the Saro also
arrived in Lagos. This junction of events have left a great impact
on the social, economic and cultural history of Lagos, here we shall
concentrate on the social as reflected in the architecture of the
period.
The
Saro had been brought up in the Victorian civilization and endeavored
to copy it almost totally. They spoke English, bore English names,
wore the latest style of Victorian dresses and exhibited the manners
and decorum of the English. They were lawyers, medical doctors and
merchants in the colonial society. Similarly, the Brazilians also
exhibited some of the culture, style of dresses, manners and decorum
of the Portuguese in Brazil. They also bore Brazilians names. They
were mostly traders, masons etc.
Most
of the Brazilians remained Catholics and the Saro, protestants,
namely Anglicans and Methodists. Some of the Saro later converted
to Baptists. In the 1880s, out of a population of 37,458, the Brazilians
numbered 3,221 (roughly 0.1%) and Saro 1,533 (roughly 0.05%) over
time also, Lagos population became heavily dependent on the export
trade. In 1871, nine and two-thirds per cent in agriculture. Ten
years later, the percentage of agriculture workers had dropped to
three and three-quarters while that of commercial workers jumped
to thirty and a half. The significance of this trend is that the
Brazilian and Saro elites were linked by commerce as many of them
were successful merchants. This generation had been born either
in the 1830s or early 1840s. by the 1880s they had made their wealth
through trade. Both the Brazilians and 1830s or early 1840s. by
the 1880s they had made their wealth through trade. Both the Brazilians
and Yoruba Saro were also linked through Islam. Some were Muslim
and the religion formed a bridge not only between the two groups
but also between them and the Lagos indigenes. In addition the Brazilian
and Saro were not divided in artistic tastes for architecture styles
