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The reenactment of the 60th anniversary of the women’s protest during the Women’s War of 1929. Courtesy of the Uyo National Museum. Source: Black Past
Meanwhile, UN Women has recognized the Aba Women’s Riot of 1929 as a notable women-led demonstration, which ignited the revolution in defending women’s rights in Nigeria.
– The Aba Women’s Riots of 1929 remain one of the most powerful manifestations of the collective resistance of Nigerian women. Thousands of market women, farmers, traders and mothers mobilized in all districts of the then Eastern Nigeria to challenge colonial taxes and the extension of military chiefs’ authority over their lives. They were organized without formal structures and without institutional support.
And yet they achieved national disruption and forced a policy change. When we contrast that era with the landscape of women’s movements today, the differences reveal how far we have come and what we may have forgotten.
The Aba women’s riots were not only a gender uprising but also a class struggle rooted in economic exploitation and social restructuring imposed by colonial capitalism. A socialist point of view helps reveal how colonial rule reshaped relations of production and imposed new class hierarchies that women directly resisted.
Deborah Eli Yusuf Tinam
Before British rule, many Igbo and Ibibio societies were relatively flexible in terms of gender roles. Women played central roles in local economies; through agriculture, trade and cooperative work (such as the umuada and mikiri networks). The umuada consisted of women born in a lineage or village who could intervene in disputes, sanction antisocial behavior, organize collective protests, and enforce community norms through social pressure and ritualized actions.
Mikiri (also known as women’s meetings or associations) were periodic assemblies of married women within a community. These networks coordinated economic activity (such as market regulation, collective work, and mutual aid) and served as forums for political discussion and mobilization.
British indirect rule dismantled these structures and replaced them with male military commanders, male tax officials, male-controlled courts, and the exclusion of women from any form of decision-making. This represented a patriarchal restructuring of society, in which the colonial state elevated men, especially those who collaborated as local agents of imperial power.
Colonialism was not limited to exploiting labor; it reorganized gender relations in ways that made women’s labor easier to extract and less politically defended. Thus, the British colonial government, contrary to the false claim that it helped “democratize” countries or “liberate” women, imposed a system that elevated patriarchy to new heights, to serve its interests.
The Abia Women’s Riot of 1929, also known as the Aba Women’s War, was a major women’s protest against British colonial rule in southeastern Nigeria. It took place mainly in and around Aba in present-day Abia State.
The protest began in Oloko, near Aba, after a colonial agent interrogated a woman named Nwanyeruwa. She informed other women and soon thousands of women joined together to protest. They marched, sang protest songs, and surrounded native courts and the homes of military chiefs. Their goal was to stop taxes and remove corrupt leaders.
During the two-month “war,” at least 25,000 Igbo women participated in protests against British officials. Thousands of Igbo women gathered at native administration centers in Calabar and Owerri, as well as smaller towns, to protest both the military chiefs and the taxes on market women.
Using the traditional practice of censuring men through ridiculous all-night singing and dancing (often called “sitting on a man”), women sang and danced, and in some places forced military leaders to resign from their positions.
The women also attacked European-owned stores and Barclays bank, broke into prisons and freed prisoners. They also attacked native courts run by colonial officials, burning many of them. The colonial police and troops were called in. They fired on crowds that had gathered in Calabar and Owerri, killing more than 50 women and wounding more than 50 others. During the two-month “war,” at least 25,000 Igbo women participated in protests against British officials.
Amid the chaos stood Adiaha Adam Udo Udoma, who grabbed the British officer’s rifle and, in a moment, recorded in legend, broke it in a fearless act that became an enduring symbol of defiance. At the end of the uprising, at least 50 women, including Udo Odoma, were killed and many more were injured. Still, the movement endured, but the British colonial authority responded forcefully, and many women were killed and injured.
Despite this, the protest was successful. The colonial government stopped plans to tax women and dismissed some military leaders. The Abia Women’s Riot remains a major event in Nigerian history. It shows the courage, unity and strength of women in the fight against injustice and colonial oppression.
One of the first challenges Aba women faced, one that is no longer as present today, was the complete absence of political recognition. At the time, women were excluded from formal government; They were not seen as political actors and did not vote (men acquired the right to vote before women, although also under restrictions). Their mobilization first had to affirm their political personality before demanding anything else.
Today, Nigerian women still face underrepresentation, but at least they are recognized participants in political discourse. Policies, ministries, gender offices and advocacy platforms exist, albeit imperfectly, and women can push for reforms through both formal and grassroots channels.
Another challenge that women in 1929 had to face was communicating over great distances without literacy or technology. They relied on networks, songs, messengers, and market alliances to coordinate action. Today’s organizers benefit from social media, digital promotion, and rapid mobilization tools that reduce logistical barriers and amplify voices far beyond local communities.
There are lasting lessons in the way the Aba women mobilized. Their movement was deeply rooted in the community; They were not elites speaking on behalf of the masses: they were the masses. Their power came from a collective legitimacy, a shared grievance, and a clear strategy that everyone understood.
They also practiced what was essentially feminist organizing—clan solidarity, a refusal to center individual leaders, and a commitment to nonviolence—until they faced violent repression by colonial forces. Modern movements sometimes struggle with fragmentation, internal rivalry, and pressure to elevate individual faces rather than collective goals.
In many ways, women’s movements today also struggle under the weight of constant “activist trainings,” Western-influenced bourgeois frameworks and toolkits that can dilute the agency they are supposed to strengthen.
Activism has gradually become “professionalized,” and while capacity building has its place, it can inadvertently create dependence on external validation before women feel confident enough to take action. Aba women did not wait for workshops on movement building, advocacy strategies, or leadership; They mobilized because the urgency of their lived experience demanded it. Its power was organic, instinctive, and rooted in shared realities.
When modern movements become too shaped by imported bourgeois methodologies, they risk losing that raw, community-driven energy that once made women’s uprisings so transformative.
Unlike 1929, contemporary advocacy now relies heavily on digital spaces, which can distance organizers from rural women whose realities more reflect those of 1929 protesters than those of urban dwellers. For example, NGO debates on gender equality often focus on urban issues (professional mobility, political appointments, digital violence), while rural women still struggle with land rights, market taxes, displacement and insecure livelihoods.
Previous movements likely would have pushed for deeper integration of rural women’s priorities, as their strength came from women who understood firsthand each other’s economic struggles. Another gap is sustainability. Many modern protests emerge in moments of crisis, but then lose momentum.
The Aba women maintained long-term pressure because their grievances were tied to everyday survival; They couldn’t afford to move on. Its coherence and clarity offer a blueprint for building movements that don’t fade once the headlines end.
Ultimately, if modern women’s movements in Nigeria want to regain their power, they must return to the grassroots, where the realities are raw, urgent and unfiltered. Rural women, who often bear the heaviest burdens, should not be an afterthought; They should be the starting point.
And while international support has helped advance gender issues, movements should not depend on it. The Women’s War of 1929 illustrates how colonial capitalism depended on patriarchy to function and how the oppression of women was fundamental to the colonial economy.
Too many actions today seem cosmetic: grand displays without the heat of real anger or the conviction to disrupt the system in any meaningful way. To go beyond this, the organization must be bold, provocative and based on lived experience. Only then can women’s movements free themselves from inherited patterns and regain the fearless, self-determined spirit that once defined women’s resistance in this country.
This is the way to be at the forefront of the fight to dismantle capitalism and patriarchy and establish an egalitarian socialist society.
Deborah Eli Yusuf Tinamis a development worker, political commentator and political economy and history enthusiast working at the intersection of peacebuilding, gender equality, youth development and governance. He holds a master’s degree in International Affairs and Strategic Studies from the Nigerian Defense Academy and has a background in Journalism from Ahmadu Bello University. She is the Vice President of the Urban Young Women’s Movement of Nigeria, a member of RevolutionNow and previously served as the North Central Coordinator of the Take it Back Movement Nigeria.
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