Abstract
This article examines the impact of the Northern Element Progressive Union (NEPU) Women’s Wing’s popular education campaigns in Northern Nigeria from 1951 to 1979. The formation of NEPU in 1951 was a watershed moment in the history of feminist struggle for education for women in Northern Nigeria. Before this moment, women in the region were denied education as most married early (New Nigeria Newspaper 1968). Gambo Sawaba, the leader of NEPU Women’s Wing, advocated for the emancipation of women through education, going as far as appealing to the military government in 1968 to support a law that would compel parents to allow their girls to further their education at university level (New Nigerian Newspaper 1968). Long before this, in the 19th century, women such as Nana Asma’u were actively promoting popular education by moving from village to village teaching women the righteousness of religion. Nana Asma’u’s movement, Yan Taru, set the foundation for the women’s movement for education in Northern Nigeria. This study uses the Pan-African feminist popular education of NEPU Women’s Wing as a case study to demonstrate resistance to the exclusion of women in public space through feminist popular education in Northern Nigeria. The paper centers on Gambo Sawaba as pivotal to the women’s mass literacy movement from a Pan-African context between 1957-1979 and is anchored in primary source data including archival materials and interviews. Meanwhile, 1979 was significant because it was the period during which the new constitution provided women’s right to political participation in Northern Nigeria.
Keywords: NEPU, women, emancipation, feminism, and Pan-African education
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02_FA2024_Vol5.3_Feature-Article_Tukur