According to a story, his grandfather was walking through the premises of the military settlement in Abeokuta with his hat on. As he went past the British flag, a soldier instructed him to remove his hat. But Rev. I. O. Ransome- Kuti refused to obey and the soldier attempted to remove the hat with a bayonet.
Rev. Ransome- Kuti, affectionately nicknamed Daodu, nearly lost an eye from the injury he sustained as result of his ‘disobedience’.
The old man was the principal of Abeokuta Grammar School. When the Nigerian Union of Teachers was founded on July 8, 1931, he was the president. Rev Kuti was not just any Tom or Dick.
Rev Kuti’s wife, Funmilayo, among other things was the first enrolled female pupil of Abeokuta Grammar School and she was the first Nigerian woman to drive a car.She was also fondly known as ‘Beere’.
More importantly, she was the leader of the women that made the then Alake of Egbaland, Sir Ladapo Ademola II to abdicate his throne as a result of a special tax imposed on women. The women protested from 1947 and Oba Ademola had to flee in 1949 because of the large demonstrations.
In her own right, Beere was a nationalist. She met Chairman Mao of China and she was a close friend of Dr Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. She fought for freedom and justice. She was called the ‘Mother of Nigeria’. She was to die from the injuries she sustained when she was thrown down from a window of the top floor of her one-storey home by soldiers who attacked Fela and his group who also stayed in the house. She died on April 13, 1978.
His father was a doctor with a difference. He abhorred unconstitutional governments with passion. In the Nigeria of his adult life the military ruled most of the time, thereby setting the stage for him to languish in unreasonable detentions most of the time. He was simply a nonconformist as far as the dictates of the Nigerian society were concerned.
He was the chairman of Nigeria’s first human rights organization, the Campaign for Democracy. He was jailed by General Buhari and his medical association was banned. When Babangida deposed Buhari, he freed Ransome-Kuti and brought him into government. But the honeymoon never lasted. The goggled one also threw him into life imprisonment because he alerted the world about the mock trial of Olusegun Obasanjo.
His two uncles were revolutionaries in their own ways too. One, the Prof, was a revolutionary in his field – medicine.
The other was FELA whose music still haunts the corrupt today.
Would anyone think a person with this kind of background will join the army? I believe service to his motherland would have spurred him on. I don’t believe he missed road in joining the military.
Whenever there is a doubt on the level of guilt of an offender, justice should tilt to the side of the offender, that is on the assumption that he even has a case to answer.
I am referring to Brigadier-general Eniitan Ransome Kuti who was sentenced to six months imprisonment and dismissed from the Nigerian Army. He has however appealed his conviction.
I am using his case to highlight the various injustices meted out to our brave soldiers. I have never met him, but I believe an injustice can never be called any other name. These guys have families. In any case, if we treat these ones shabbily, we are setting a precedent.
Others will think twice before they join the armed forces of Nigeria. In conclusion, I want everyone of us, Nigerians, to please plead with the authorities to free these soldiers.
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