Kudirat Abiola, wife of the late President-elect of Nigeria, Chief Moshood Abiola, now lives in the ranks of the greats. She was born in 1952, in the northern Nigerian city of Zaria, where she also had her early education. Testimonies of her times at Muslim Girls High School, Ijebu Ode, indicate the evolution of a powerful mind that married the qualities of hard work with the diligence of an achiever, becoming the Head Prefect in her final year.

At 21, she married Chief Moshood Abiola in a union that later produced seven children. Partly in response to the circumstance of her own history, Kudirat adopted a lot of social causes, and was to become a prime figure in the educational program of the Ansar-Ud-Deen Muslim movement in Nigeria. Kudirat also became a successful businesswoman, building a pharmaceutical company, which is one of the leading indigenous names in West Africa.

Ordinarily tuned to private life, the military's annulment of the June 12,1993 Presidential election which her husband had won, brought Kudirat into the pro-democracy movement. The movement had its costs: in 1994, Moshood Abiola was incarcerated and kept in solitary confinement for claiming his presidential mandate. Despite the clear danger, Kudirat provided leadership in this period of general confusion in the movement; she stepped forward, convinced that the military's actions amounted to a violation of the fundamental right of Nigeria's people to elect their government.

She scored many victories: In the summer of 1994, Kudirat was actively involved in moving and sustaining the oil workers twelve-week strike against the military. The strike, which succeeded in isolating and weakening the government, is the longest in African history by oil workers. In December of 1995, when the pro-democracy group decided to march for freedom in Lagos, Kudirat along with such esteemed nationalists as Chief Anthony Enahoro, were at the forefront of the march, braving the bullets of government forces sent to intimidate them.

On June 4th 1996, a few days to the anniversary of the June 12 commemorative date, when Nigerians resolved to vote out the military dictatorship, Kudirat's life on earth ended, extinguished by assassins' bullets. Kudirat's spirit has become a reference and inspiration for all those who fight against injustice. She has not died in vain but lives on, in the hearts and minds of all fighters for freedom and all lovers of justice, and on the conscience of all agents of repression and injustice.