Woman On Woman : Bolanle’s Film On Funmilayo Ransome -Kuti Out Soon
I learnt my kinswoman Bolanle Austin -Peters has cooked a very delicious soup that we shall all soon queue to taste. Gist from the art underground told me that a few people were a couple of days ago admitted into the kitchen to have a whiff of the aroma. and they came with a taste that will forever keep their mouth watering.
It is about a docudrama on a woman of so many parts who also sired men and women that have joined in shaping Nigeria in the last one hundred years.
It is the story of a woman of many firsts: first to own and licensed to drive a motor car; first to travel to China; first to shoo a foremost king out of his throne; first to have her passport seized. and barred from traveling for being allegedly a Communist agitator; the only woman on the delegation that negotiated Nigeria’s independence.
It is the action packed story of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti , the Egba woman who fought for the emancipation of Nigerian women.
It is the story of the life of the woman who gave birth to the. world acclaimed musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti; the. woman who also sired Prof Olikoye Ransome -Kuti, unarguably the best ever Minister of Health in Nigeria and Dr Beko Ransome- Kuti , political activist, once President of Nigeria Medical Association and co founder of Campaign for Democracy ( CD ) and Committee for the Defence of Human Rights ( CDHR ).
The grand mother of Nike , Yeni , Femi and Seun Kuti and great grand mother of Made Kuti, all accomplished professionals and musicians who like their parents and grand parents are campaigning for social justice in our beleaguered country.
She is the wife of Rev Israel Oludotun Ransome — Kuti, the educationist and first President of Nigeria Union of Teachers, who chaired the Committee that gave birth to Nigeria’s first university , the University of Ibadan. The daughter in — law of a clergy man Josiah Ransome — Kuti who holds the record of being the first recorded musician in Nigeria history.
She is also an aunt to the first and only Nigerian Nobel Prize winner in literature, Prof Wole Soyinka.
Her life and struggle has been captured in celluloid and will soon be in the cinema across the country and all over the world.
Thank you Bolanle for reaching into the archives to bring to light the story of this exceptionally courageous woman which by extension will be the story of a family which by their sheer commitment and courage given the most to Nigeria.
Bolanle you. are doing for the arts what your subject did for the emancipation of the people of Nigeria.
We wait eagerly to partake in this broth.
