Feminist and founder of 'Nigeria Women's Party', Oyinkansola Abayomi dies in Lagos
On this date, 19th of March in 1990, Nigerian nationalist and feminist, Iyaloye Oyinkansola Abayomi who was born on 6th of March in 1897 died in Lagos, Nigeria. Oyinkansola Abayomi was the head of the Nigerian Girl Guides and founder of the Nigerian Women's Party.
Her father was Sir Kitoye Ajasa, a prominent Saro tribesman who was the first Nigerian to be knighted by the British, and her mother was Lucretia Olayinka Moore, an omoba of an Egba royal family. She attended Anglican Girls' Seminary school, Lagos.
She graduated in 1909. She then went to school at the Young Ladies Academy at Ryford Hall, located in Gloucestershire, England. In 1917, she attended the Royal Academy of Music in London.
In England, she had been a member of the Girl Guides. After discovering that the first Nigerian chapter of the Guides had been established in Lagos by a native Englander who was teaching there, Abayomi joined and became the first aboriginal supervisor of the group. In August of 1923, she married Moronfolu Abayomi, a lawyer. Following a brief honeymoon, they returned to Lagos and their respective jobs. Two months later, Moronfolu was shot and killed while in court. In despair, Abayomi returned home to live with her parents.
Shortly after studying in England, Oyinkan Abayomi had joined those who demanded that Nigerian women's education be equal to that of their male peers. In particular, activists sought a secondary school for girls, an institution parallel to the boys' King's College.
As a member of the Lagos Women's Organization, Abayomi campaigned and raised funds for Queen's College, which was established in Lagos in 1927. She was invited to be a member of the two-person teaching staff, and was the only Nigerian working for the school.
Work for the Girl Guides escalated as they sought government support and recognition equal to that of the local Boy Scouts. In 1931, support was granted. Abayomi rose in administration of the Girl Guides, until she received the top posting of chief commissioner. Meanwhile, her husband Kofo cofounded the Lagos Youth Movement, later the Nigerian Youth Movement, intent upon bringing Nigerian government into native, rather than British, hands. Abayomi joined the cause and in 1944 founded the Nigerian Women's Party, which helped unite several diffuse women's organizations. They rallied for nationalism and continued recognition of equal opportunities for women.
On January 1, 1979, Kofo died. Three years later, in 1982, Abayomi retired from the Girl Guides and was given the honorary title Life President. This was not, however, her only title. In 1954, Kofo had been knighted by the king, and she was thus known as Lady Oyinkan. In recognition for her work on behalf of Nigeria and women, Abayomi was also honored with several traditional chieftaincies, receiving five chief titles in all, the last of which was Iya Abiye of Egbaland. Lady Oyinkan Abayomi died in 1990 at the age of 93.
U.S. launches cruise missiles at Saddam
Also on this day in 2003, former U.S. President George W. Bush ordered air strikes on Baghdad, thus launching the Iraq War to oust dictator Saddam Hussein, who was believed to be manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. and coalition forces launched missiles and bombs at targets in Iraq as morning dawned in Baghdad, including a "decapitation attack" aimed at then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other top members of the country's leadership.
Bush announced the start of the military campaign against Iraq shortly afterward in a televised address from the White House.
"American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger," Bush said.
Administration sources said the decision to strike came after a nearly four-hour meeting in the Oval Office in which then CIA Director George Tenet and Pentagon officials told Bush they could lose the "target of opportunity" if they didn't act quickly; Bush then gave the green light. Hours later, a defiant Saddam wearing a military uniform appeared on Iraqi television to denounce the U.S.-led military campaign as "criminal" and to say his countrymen would be victorious.
"We pledge that we will confront the invaders," he said, adding Iraqi resistance would cause the coalition to "lose any hope in accomplishing what they were driven to by the criminal Zionists and others with their agendas." In his taped speech, Saddam ended his message by saying, "Long live jihad and long live Palestine."
Also in New York, Iraq Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammed Aldouri said, "It seems that the war of aggression against my country has started." He called the the military action "a violation of international law" and said he would ask the United Nations and the Security Council to hold allied forces accountable for the attacks on Iraq.
More than 40 satellite-guided Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from U.S. warships in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, military officials said. F117 stealth fighters, which carry two 2,000-pound bombs apiece, also were involved in the strikes, though apparently on a target other than Saddam.
Air raid sirens were heard in Baghdad at about 5:30 a.m. Thursday (9:30 p.m. Wednesday ET) about 90 minutes after the U.S. deadline for Saddam to step down or face a U.S.-led military attack. In his four-minute announcement from the Oval Office, Bush said the military campaign, supported by 35 nations, would make efforts to spare Iraqi civilians. But he made it clear the U.S. military planned to use its full might in the war.
"This will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome except victory," he said.
Comments