Nigeria’s political history is often told through the names of prominent male figures and the prisons that held them. Yet across decades, women also stood at the frontlines of resistance, and many of them were arrested, detained, prosecuted, or imprisoned for doing so. Their struggles stretched from colonial rule to military dictatorship, shaping the nation’s political development while exposing the cost of dissent.
These women were not passive supporters. They organised movements, mobilised markets, led protests, built political parties, and published investigations that unsettled those in power. When they became too effective to ignore, the response often included arrest and confinement.
The Women’s War of 1929, Resistance in Southeastern Nigeria
In late 1929, thousands of women across southeastern Nigeria rose in protest against the colonial warrant chief system and the threat of taxation. The uprising, widely known as the Women’s War or the Aba Women’s Rebellion, remains one of the largest anti colonial movements led by women in African history.
Women gathered in large numbers, challenged local authorities aligned with colonial rule, and used traditional protest tactics that relied on public assembly, collective singing, and moral pressure. Colonial authorities responded with force. Troops opened fire on protesters, and historical accounts record that dozens of women were killed, with many more wounded.
The uprising marked a turning point in colonial administration. Commissions of inquiry followed, and aspects of the warrant chief system were reconsidered. The Women’s War demonstrated that women were capable of mobilising political resistance at scale, and that colonial authorities were prepared to suppress that resistance through violence and arrests.
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Funmilayo Ransome Kuti and the Abeokuta Women’s Movement
By the 1940s, organised women’s political activism in southwestern Nigeria had gained national prominence. Funmilayo Ransome Kuti emerged as a leading figure through the Abeokuta Women’s Union, mobilising thousands of market women against unfair taxation and political exclusion.
Her activism directly challenged both colonial authorities and the Alake of Egbaland. She was arrested and prosecuted during the height of the protests. In one widely reported case, she was given the option of paying a fine or serving a prison sentence. She refused to pay the fine. Sustained mobilisation by her supporters increased public pressure, and she was released.
The Abeokuta movement ultimately forced significant political change, including the temporary abdication of the Alake. Ransome Kuti’s case showed how women’s collective power could confront entrenched authority, even when arrest was used to intimidate leadership.
Hajiya Gambo Sawaba, Repeated Imprisonment in Northern Nigeria
In northern Nigeria, Hajiya Gambo Sawaba became one of the most prominent female political activists of the twentieth century. She campaigned for women’s participation in politics, criticised entrenched power structures, and spoke against social practices that limited women’s rights.
Over the course of her political life, she was reportedly imprisoned 16 times. Her arrests occurred across different administrations, reflecting sustained political tension between her activism and those in authority. Accounts of her imprisonment describe harsh punishment and repeated detention aimed at curbing her influence.
Despite the frequency of her arrests, Sawaba remained active in political organising. Her persistence expanded conversations about women’s political participation in northern Nigeria and helped redefine the boundaries of public engagement for women in the region.
Margaret Ekpo and Civil War Detention
Margaret Ekpo played a central role in mobilising women in the Eastern Region and became one of Nigeria’s pioneering female politicians. She participated in regional and national politics in the years surrounding independence.
During the Nigerian Civil War, she was detained by Biafran authorities for approximately three years. Reports describe difficult conditions during her detention. Her imprisonment occurred during a period of intense political and military conflict, when suspicion and internal power struggles shaped government actions.
Ekpo’s detention underscores how political conflict in wartime Nigeria extended beyond battlefields, affecting influential civilian figures, including women who had built substantial political networks.
June 12, Military Rule, and Secret Tribunals
The annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election ushered in a period of political unrest and intensified repression. Under the military rule of General Sani Abacha, arrests and detentions of activists, journalists, and political opponents became widespread.
Journalist Chris Anyanwu became one of the most visible female prisoners of that era. In 1995, she was arrested and charged as an accessory to a treasonable felony. She was tried before a secret military tribunal and sentenced to life imprisonment. International advocacy and sustained pressure later led to the commutation of her sentence to 15 years.
Her imprisonment symbolised the broader suppression of press freedom and political dissent during the military years. It also demonstrated the risks faced by women who used journalism and public speech to challenge state authority.
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The Enduring Pattern of Resistance
Across these different historical moments, a consistent pattern emerges. Women organised communities, challenged political exclusion, and confronted policies they viewed as unjust. Authorities responded with arrest, detention, and imprisonment.
From the mass mobilisation of 1929 to courtroom prosecutions in the 1940s, from repeated jail terms in northern Nigeria to wartime detention and secret tribunals under military rule, Nigerian women repeatedly met power at its most coercive point.
Yet imprisonment did not end their influence. The Women’s War reshaped colonial governance. Funmilayo Ransome Kuti’s organising altered political dynamics in Abeokuta. Hajiya Gambo Sawaba’s persistence redefined women’s activism in northern Nigeria. Margaret Ekpo’s leadership remained part of the foundation of women’s political participation. Chris Anyanwu’s imprisonment became part of the story of press resistance in modern Nigeria.
Nigeria’s political history is incomplete without acknowledging the women who faced confinement for demanding freedom. Their arrests were meant to silence them. Instead, their stories continue to shape how the nation understands power, protest, and the price of dissent.
Author’s Note
The history of Nigeria’s freedom struggles is not only a story of speeches and elections, it is also a story of courage tested inside cells and courtrooms. These women faced arrest because their voices carried weight, their organising built influence, and their actions threatened established authority. Their experiences remind us that the fight for justice often moves through hardship before it becomes history.
References
Al Jazeera, Remembering Funmilayo Ransome Kuti, Nigeria’s “lioness of Lisabi.”
Al Jazeera, Hajiya Gambo Sawaba, “the most jailed Nigerian female politician.”
Committee to Protect Journalists, Christine Anyanwu, case profile and award record.
U.S. Department of State, Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Nigeria, 1995.
Deutsche Welle, Margaret Ekpo, pioneering feminism in Nigeria.
The Open University, Investigating history resource on the Aba women’s protest.
American Historical Association, Riot or Rebellion? The Women’s Market Rebellion of 1929.
BlackPast, Aba Women’s Riots, 1929 summary.
