Nnimmo Bassey

Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria; Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF)


Nnimmo Bassey is the Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria and the Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF). Bassey first became an activist after oil conflicts with the Shell Petroleum Development Company escalated into a massacre in 1990, leaving 80 people dead and nearly 500 houses destroyed in the village of Umu Echem. Since then, he has become one of Africa’s leading advocates for the environment and human rights. He was named one of Time magazine's Heroes of the Environment 2009, and in 2010 Bassey was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, otherwise known as the Alternative Nobel Prize. He won the Rafto Prize for human rights defenders in 2012.