Hafsat Abiola

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Hafsat Abiola, Willem Dafoe and Bianca Jagger at the Dropping Knowledge project's Table of Free Voices in Berlin, September 2006

Hafsat Abiola (born 1974 in Lagos) is a Nigerian human rights, civil rights and democracy activist, founder of the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND), which seeks to strengthen civil society and promote democracy in Nigeria.

She was the seventh child of the late Chief Moshood Abiola, who won the first democratic elections in Nigeria in 1993, but was put in prison and died there in 1998. Her mother, Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, was murdered during a demonstration for the release of her husband in 1996.

Abiola graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, in 1992 and Harvard College in 1996. She received an honorary doctorate from Haverford College.

In 2000, Abiola was honored as one of the Global Leaders of Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In 2003, she was elected as a Fellow of the Ashoka: Innovators for the Public in recognition of her international status as a social entrepreneur. In 2006 she was nominated to be a founding councilor at the World Future Council.

In 2006 she raised funds by organizing performances of The Vagina Monologues in Nigeria. ^[1]^[2]

In 2008, the Europe-based A Different View chose Abiola to be one of the 15 Champions of World Democracy. Other champions include Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Corazon Aquino, and Sima Samar.^[3]