Gambo Sawaba

Hajia Gambo Sawaba (15 February 1933 – October 2001) was a Nigerian women's rights activist, politician and philanthropist (Wikipedia). Her father, Isa Amartey Amarteifio, was an immigrant from Ghana who converted to Islam after settling in Zaria; her mother, Fatima, was a Nupe woman from Niger State. She was named Gambo, the Hausa name for a child born after twins.

She was elected leader of the national women's wing of the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) and later served as deputy chairman of the Great Nigerian People's Party. Wikipedia records that she was imprisoned sixteen times for openly campaigning against child marriage, forced and unpaid labour and unfair taxes, and for jobs for women, education for girls and full voting rights.

Her father, a graduate of the Ghana School of Survey, came to Nigeria in 1910 to seek work with the railway; her mother, Fatima, was a widow from Lavun in Niger State. Sawaba, named Hajaratu, was the fifth of their six children. She attended the Native Authority primary school in Tudun Wada, but had to leave school after her father died in 1943; her mother died three years later. At thirteen she was married to a Second World War veteran who left after her first pregnancy, and her later marriages did not last. As a child she was known for defending weaker friends in street fights, saying, "OK, I have bought the fight from you" (Wikipedia).

She was involved in politics from the age of seventeen, joining the opposition Northern Elements Progressive Union at a time when the Northern People's Congress, backed by the emirs and the colonial authorities, dominated the north. She campaigned against under-age marriage and forced labour and for Western education in the north, and made her name by standing up to speak at a political meeting full of men. Her mentor, Aminu Kano, gave her the name Sawaba, meaning freedom or redemption, after she was elected head of NEPU's women's wing; she was also mentored by Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (Wikipedia).

She is widely regarded as a pioneer of the struggle for the liberation of northern women, and was described as "the most jailed Nigerian female"; she kept a blanket marked "Prison Yard" for her arrests. A general hospital in Kaduna and a hostel at Bayero University, Kano, are named after her (Wikipedia).