The Women's War (Aba Women's War)

In November 1929 thousands of women in south-eastern Nigeria rose against the warrant chiefs, local men appointed by the British colonial government who had no precedent in Igbo tradition. According to Wikipedia, the protests began when Igbo women from the Bende district, Umuahia and other places travelled to the town of Oloko, accusing the warrant chiefs of restricting women's role in government. Women of six peoples took part: Igbo, Ibibio, Andoni, Ogoni, Efik and Ijaw.

The protests were organised and led by rural women of the Owerri and Calabar provinces. The word "war" did not mean fighting: it referred to the practice of "making war on" (or "sitting on") a man, a form of public shaming. Many warrant chiefs were forced to resign, and sixteen Native Courts were attacked, most of them destroyed. In Igbo it is remembered as Ogu Umunwanyi.

The immediate cause was the extension of direct taxation. Direct taxation of men was introduced in the region in 1928 without major incidents (Wikipedia). In 1929 a new census of households, recording wives, children and livestock, led the women of Oloko to suspect that they too would be taxed. The world financial crash of 1929 had already hurt women's trade and production. On 18 November 1929 a dispute broke out between a woman named Nwanyeruwa and Mark Emereuwa, who was counting people for the warrant chief Okugo, and the protest spread from there (Wikipedia).

In 1930 the colonial government abolished the warrant chief system and appointed women to the Native Courts. Wikipedia describes the Women's War as the first major revolt by women in West Africa and a prelude to mass African nationalism.

By the time order was restored, about 55 women had been killed by colonial troops, and more than thirty punitive inquiries had been carried out across the region. A commission of inquiry held public sittings for thirty-eight days in the Owerri and Calabar provinces and heard 485 witnesses, only about 103 of them women (Wikipedia).