by Iheoma Obibi and Solumfeechi Odinkalu
Professor Benedicta “Bene” Madunagu shaped African feminist organising for more than five decades. Her work brought together scholarship, political education, socialist analysis and practical movement building. She lived her feminism as a daily discipline, not an identity. She approached ideas as tools for change and saw organising as the method through which women and girls could claim social and political power. Her work influenced activists across Nigeria and the African region, and it continues to guide feminist thinking today.
Bene was born on 21 March 1947. She studied botany at the University of Lagos and went on to pursue postgraduate studies in phytopathology at the University of Ibadan where she earned her PhD. She began lecturing at the University of Lagos before moving, in 1976, to the newly created University of Calabar where she spent the rest of her academic career, rising to the position of Professor of Botany and retiring in 2012. For her, academia was never an isolated space. It was a platform for political education, debate and organising, especially among students and younger academics.
Read the full article below or download here
13_FA2026_Vol7.1_Tribute-for-Prof-Benedicta-Madunagu_Obibi-and-Odinkalu