The Incredible Story of Iyaloja Alaga Humuani Amoke - Pioneered first all female school in Ibadan.
She led protesters to demand equal pay and better working condition for women
Alaga Amoke was Born between 1997 and 1903 and died on the 29th January 1993 in Ibadan, Nigeria ; wealthy trader ; activist for the rights of market-sellers and Muslim women ; activist for the Action Group party, founding member of the AG women’s wing ; Isabatu-deen Society’s founding member, President of the National Council of Women’s Societies.
Humuani Alaga, best known as Mama Humuani Alaga, was born between 1987 and 1903 in Ibadan to devoted Muslims and traders. Her father, Alfa Aliu Adisa Alaga, was a Muslim chief and her mother, Asimowu Oladoyinbo Ladebo Anigbalawo, was a very influential textiles and beads trader.
Mama Humuani Alaga received a Muslim education from her parents and from a young age she followed them in their trader’s travels around the Yoruba area. From the age of 15, she was in charge of accounts for her mother and in 1925 she started selling textiles at Gbagi Market. In 1928 she opened her own shop at 30a Lebanon Street, thus becoming the first women to open a shop in this predominantly European’s traders street.
During this period, she married an Abeokuta man, Sanusi Oshinwusi, chief of sales for the United African Company for which she was the dealer in the market.
Soon she became the first Gbagi market woman and chief of sales for goods that were produced in local companies and sold in local and international trades. In 1934, she was declared Iya Egbe Alaso (leader of textile dealers) in Gbagi market and her concern for market owners led her to encourage the Women’s Cotton Trade Union to protest in Mapo Hall, the administrative centre of the city, against the Lebanese merchants ; they would buy in bulk from women traders to sell in retail at cheaper prices, upsetting the trade of local merchants. Further to market women requests, the king of Ibadan obliged Lebanese traders to cease this kind of trade.
For example, in 1958, she founded a religious society called Isabatu-deen Society (IS) with a group of 11 women. Its main objective was to create a secondary school for Muslim girls.
In fact, in the 1950’s, there was a lack of secondary schools for Muslim girls and the teachers in missionary schools were always pressing girls to convert to Christianity.
When the Ibadan Saint Anne’s School denied the admission of one of her daughters, Mama Humuani Alaga began to mobilise the Muslim women community.
She collected funds with donations and with an annual bazar in order to open a school in which a western education could be combined with an Islamic education.
Mama Humuani Alaga pressed vehemently the Ministry of Education to obtain the authorisation to open the school : after several private meetings, she organised a delegation of influent women of the IS to meet the current Premier, Chief Akintola. The school, baptised Isabatu-deen Society, opened on the 24th January 1964 with 64 students.
Her concern for education was further demonstrated by the construction of the Sango Mosque in Ibadan, during the 1960’s.
In this Mosque she personally paid a group of teachers to provide a free or cheap Muslim education for children. Moreover, in April 1978, she became the head of the delegation of market women to the Governor of Oyo state, pressing him to liberate the students who had been arrested during a protest against the raise of admission fees.
From a political point of view, she was one of the founders of the AG women’s wing in 1953. For merchants, she was the veritable AG voice in the market : she organized market women for party campaigns, she taught them songs and gave gifts to thank them for their affiliation to the party.
Being initially a unifying figure between the AG and the market-sellers, she became an intermediator between women’s organisations and market women, together with Mama Humuani Alade, another wealthy trader.
In 1957, the first association putting together market women and those of the educated elite was founded under the name, “The Council of Women’s Societies”.
Mama Humuani Alaga began to gradually involve in the association the individual market women and their organisations.
The aim of the organisation was on the one hand to keep the women informed of their rights (nurseries, schools and medical aids) and on the other hand to create an important and unified group able to put pressure on the government.
In 1961, due to her prominent position, Mama Humuani Alaga was elected President of the association, renamed the National Council of Women’s Societies (NCWS), thus becoming the first and only non-educated and non-English speaker President.
Moreover, her influence allowed her to take part, together with other prominent women of nine West-African countries, in the seminar The African woman designs her future held in Ibadan in August 1960 to discuss common problems faced by African women. In 1961 she was also sent as delegate of the NCWS and as spokesperson of Nigerian women’s interests to one of the International Alliance’s conferences held in Dublin.
Her stature and contribution were recognised by the British who awarded her, in June 1961, the prestigious title of Member of the British Empire.
She died in Ibadan in 1993.
Credit : Maitron.fr
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