Nnimmo Bassey is a Nigerian architect, environmental activist, author, and poet. He has been a prominent figure in human rights advocacy since the 1980s, serving on the Board of Directors of Nigeria’s Civil Liberties Organization between 1993 and 1999. His passion for campaigning against oil damage caused to Nigerian communities and across sub-tropical African countries led him to co-found Environmental Rights Action (ERA) in 1993, where he served as Executive Director for two decades. Since 1996, Nnimmo became the Steering Committee Member of Oilwatch International to mobilize communities in Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Congo, Ghana, and Uganda, as well as South American and Southeast Asian countries to resist destructive oil and gas activities. His tireless dedication to access to climate justice led him to devote more time to growing a new think-tank and advocacy organization called Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), of which he has been the director since 2013.
His aspiring works on environmental activism and access to climate justice for African communities led him to become Time’s Magazine Heroes of the Environment in 2009. In addition, Nnimmo was named a Laureate of the Right Livelihood Award in 2010, and in 2012, he was also awarded the Rafto Human Rights Prize. He also received an honorary doctorate from the University of York, United Kingdom, in 2019. In his spare time, Nnimmo also wrote more than 10 books spanning genres from architecture to environment and poetry.