Where would Nigeria be without them?

Through twenty detailed chapters over nearly 800 pages Tayo Agunbiade tells us the compelling stories of many women who were left out of the record books, ‘visibilising’ (xii) their contributions to Nigerian history. The anthology shines a light on tales from 1922–2022 using an incredible amount of detail drawn from archival research between Nigeria (including Ibadan, Kaduna, Enugu, Abeokuta and Lagos) and the United Kingdom (including Manchester, London, Cambridge, Oxford). The extent of social action and change that is accelerated by these women begs the question: where would Nigeria be without them?

Agunbiade begins with a big hitter, Oyinkansola Morenike Abayomi, founder of the Nigerian Women’s Party in 1944 and life-time political activist. Though it was short-lived (dissolved in 1950), the nuances of her party’s formation and decline are immortalized, and act as a lesson and inspiration to future generations. Chapter two reviews the tug and pull battle for female education in the early days of Nigeria’s colonization, revealing a blatant example of how Western values were misguidedly projected onto its subjects. This leads into the next section which dissects the unequal employment of women into lower status jobs by weaving narratives together through clippings from the Lagos Standard, the Nigerian Pioneer, the Nigerian Daily Times, the Lagos Weekly Record and many other news sources. Included here is Alimotu Pelewura’s rally with thousands of market women against colonial tax impositions which led to successful changes in policy, and Ahudi from Isidima who was labelled an ‘Ibo Suffragette’ for being one of the first to advocate for women’s voting rights. Towards the end of the book we learn about Grace Ogbemi (pictured on the hardback front cover) who was among the first women barristers in Nigeria, and Agunbiade goes on to detail the lives of twenty women who walked the same judicial path in Ogbemi’s wake.

Despite its exhaustive archival research and sources, the text lacks specific referencing. The use of footnotes would have been welcome in place of the extensive bibliography that appears at the end of the book, making it cumbersome for readers to locate specific references for the material presented in each chapter and would help to navigate the impressive density of names mentioned.

This aside, the accomplishment of Untold Histories of Nigerian Women: emerging from the margins is its ability not to over-essentialize women in their contexts even in the light of their historical marginalization by including unbiased, narrated, large direct quotes and passages from speeches.

The text is an essential companion to anyone interested in ameliorating women’s lives, understanding the particular histories of those like Oyinkansola, Alimotu, Ahudi or Grace who fought against odds for a seat at the table, for leaders who wish to foster a constituency of compassion, and for Nigerian historians and gender studies specialists. It is praised by acclaimed African historians Hakim Adi and Barnaby Phillips who admire Agunbiade’s ability to go beyond the historical sources and empathize with the women she researched.

The African Studies community was saddened to learn of Agunbiade’s passing on Tuesday 22 October 2024. I write this review from the University of East London (United Kingdom), one of the author’s former institutions. Here, Ọmọ́táyọ̀ Agunbiade, or Tayo as she was known to her friends, earned a degree in Women’s Development Studies after a previous degree in History from the University of Lagos (Nigeria).

I had the privilege of spending time with her a few months before her death when I worked in the Cambridge University African Studies Library. Despite the devastating woes of Tayo’s chemotherapy, she had chosen to travel to Cambridge from London to investigate the Church Missionary Society archives relating to Nigeria held there. Her determination to spotlight the forgotten stories of West African women, for what was to be a second book, despite her narrowing odds, was beyond inspiring.

Agunbiade’s impact on her community is demonstrated by the outpouring of love following her passing. Her dedication to unearthing stories from the archive was shared on her X (Twitter) page under the guise of ‘Tayo in the Archives’ and posts regularly drew 5,000+ views. We will all miss her. Indeed, the subtitle of her book, ‘emerging from the margins’, means it’s only the beginning of these histories unfolding. Thank you Tayo.