Wuraola Esan

Wuraola Adepeju Esan was born in 1909 in Calabar.[2] Her parents were not western trained although they promoted a western educative course for their children. Esan attended Baptist Girls College, Idi Aba, Abeokuta before proceeding to the United Missionary College to earn a teachers training diploma. From 1930 to 1934, she was a domestic science teacher at a missionary training school in Akure. She later married Victor Esan in 1934 and they briefly lived in Lagos. A few years later she moved back to her hometown of Ibadan.[3]

Although educational facilities available to women during the colonial era were limited. In 1944, she established the Ibadan People's Girls Grammar School in Molete,[4] to educate women in different subjects including domestic science. However, her views and subsequent political ideas did not advocate a much more expanded vision of women's place in a broader society.[5]

In the 1950s, she entered partisan politics and was a member of the women's wing of the Action Group. Though the women were important instruments to garner votes, few were accorded official power and party-wide responsibility. However, Esan was able to rise through the ranks to become the first female member of the Nigerian National Assembly, as a nominated senator from Ibadan West. She was also a founding member of the National Council of Women Societies. In 1975, she took the title of Iyalode and thus acquired the rank of a high chief in Ibadan.[1]