Nnimmo Bassey

is Director of the ecological think-tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and member of the steering committee of Oilwatch International – a network resisting the expansion of fossil fuels extraction in the Global South. Bassey has been the Principal Partner of Base Consult, an architectural practice since 1991. He has served as chair of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) (2008-2012) and Executive Director of Nigeria’s Environmental Rights Action (1993-2013). He was co-recipient of the Right Livelihood Award 2010, also known as the “Alternative Noble Prize”. In 2012 he received the Rafto Human Rights Award. In 2014 he received Nigeria’s national honour as Member of the Federal Republic (MFR) in recognition of his environmental activism. Bassey is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Architects and has authored books on the environment, architecture and poetry. He is also a Member of the Action Research Network for a Wellbeing Economy in Africa (WE-Africa). Bassey received Nigeria’s National honour, Member of the Federal Republic (MFR) in 2014, and an honorary doctorate from the University of York, UK, in 2019.
His books include We Thought it Was Oil, But It was Blood – Poetry (Kraft Books, 2002), I will Not Dance to Your Beat – Poetry (Kraft Books, 2011), To Cook a Continent – Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa (Pambazuka Press, 2012) and Oil Politics – Echoes of Ecological War (Daraja Press, 2016). He also runs a blog Eti Uwem, meaning “good living”.

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