Hajia Gambo Sawaba (Hajaratu Amartey Awa, 1933–2001) of Zaria, daughter of a Nupe woman and a Ghanaian father, was the most jailed politician in Northern Nigerian history — imprisoned sixteen times between 1952 and 1979 by the Sir Ahmadu Bello government for organising Hausa-Fulani women into the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) and later the PRP. She received a public flogging by order of the Native Authority of Zaria in 1957 for 'inciting women'.
Deputy chairperson of the Great Nigeria People's Party (GNPP, 1979) and a long-time deputy chairperson of the PRP under Mallam Aminu Kano, she was the bridge between the radical northern populism of the 1950s and the women's rights agenda of the Second Republic.