 the under-celebrated 20th century women nationalists of Nigeria. The very important women in Nigeria's history, especially the women who did far more between 1900 to 1960, indeed beyond 1960, than the men who later boxed in the glory of governance and history are many and their names to mention a few like Kumelaya Ransom Kuti, Magret Hepo, Halimo Tupile Wura, Mamaduni, Ladikwali, Flora, Muakpa, Buchi, Emechita, Mebe Shebun, Nanna Asmao, and the host of many authors deserve to be written down more boldly and legitimately. They deserve more than just the person mentioned. Each tree must celebrate these fearless and stereotyped-defying I will start this series with the Yaloja No. 1 Halimo Tupile Wura. Chief Halimo Tupile Wura 1865 to 1951 was a Nigerian trader who was leader of the Lagos Market Women's Association, a Lagos-based market women advocacy group. She was also an important political ally of Abbot Malkoli. Indeed, far more important than Inamdia Zikwe that Abbot Malkoli ultimately anointed to succeed him because Pelle Wura was not only gender disadvantaged but she was illiterate. However, the Lagos Market Women's Association that she led was one of the most important women's organizations in Lagos and Nigeria in general during the colonial period. Pelle Wura was born in Lagos to a large polygamist family. She was the elder of two children born by a biological mother. A mother was a fishmonger, Yaleja, as we often call them. And Pelle Wura, as it was the wound in those days, also chose fish trading as an occupation. By 1900, she had become an important leader of the market women and traders. In 1910, she was given a chieftain's title by Oba Esubahi, a Lagos who himself was a radical oba of Lagos that was humiliated and detuned by the colonial administration but had to be reinstated because downtrodden negotiations are dawding and the previous council of the House of Lords, Naya Kingdom's Supreme Court then ruled that he'd be reinstated. In the 1920s, she was leader of the Eric Comet Market and with the support of Abbot Malkoli she rose to become the leader of the newly formed Lagos Market Women's Association. She belonged to their warry tribe, their original owners of Lagos of Europe. The Lagos Market Women's Association, LMWA, was founded in the 1920s by Pelle Wura and a few other market leaders. Pelle Wura, a fish trader, was Yaleja, that is chair of the local market and she became the association's founding leader. During her reign, LMWA protested against imposterization and price control of produce. Both incidents she believed would impact negatively on the livelihood of her members in particular and women in general. In 1932, when the Wura led market women in protest against directization of women by the colonial government, when rumors surfaced about the proposed tax on women, she was a member of the committee of women that marched to the government house in protest against the proposed punitive fiscal policy. In the same year, due to her leadership of the protest, she was appointed as the women's representative in the Louk Committee, an advisory group of the good and the great of Lagos who, during the Begig-Berber crisis, stood in support of Abayishubaye Leko for which the young and ambitious Abayi Makoli was crying. In the mid-1930s, she led a protest against the relocation of the Leko Market to the Oluwale area of Lagos. Bele Wura and some Leko women attempted to physically block any relocation action by authorities which led to her detention. The market women in Lagos rallied in her support and she and other women detainees were released. In 1940, the colonial government proposed a new taxation plan on women who earned about 50 pounds per annum. Female taxation was changed to Yoruba land and the women again rose in protest. Bele Wura and other women objected because of its novelty and also because of the challenging economic difficulties such as iron employment rate as a result of the World War II. Though not many market women amongst the 8000 plus members of the organization and about 50 pounds per annum, she felt it could be a sleeping slope towards full taxation of women. However, on taxation of women, the colonial government did not budge but responded by increasing the taxable income to those earning more than 200 pounds per annum from the initial threshold of 50 pounds. In 1939, Bele Wura became an executive member of the Niger Union of Young Democrats, a youthful party that was closely aligned with the Albert Macaulay's Nigerian National Democratic Party NNDP. She was even more than ever Macaulay the person that most NNDP rally goers wanted to see take the rostrum and speak. Most NNDP candidates always wanted her to publicly lead their campaigns even though paradoxically women were disenfranchised. She was also briefly a member of the Onikon Abayomila Nigerian Women's Party. Bele Wura died in 1951. She was succeeded by one of her followers, Chief Abibatu Mogadji, the mother of President Bona Mehtimumbu, who, more so during Nigeria's military in Toregna, also became an intrepid voice for democracy and good governance. In conclusion, how, like a little more to Bele Wura and Abibatu Mogadji, are you daily resisting the many frustrating handicaps of gender, inadequate western education and lonely birth to redefine the quality of life of the mass of humanity around you? And that's it for tonight. I am Gola Oba.