Nnimmo Bassey (b.11 June 58) is director of the ecological think-tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and member steering committee of Oilwatch International and is on the executive committee of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, among others. He was chair of Friends of the Earth International (2008-2012) and Executive Director of Nigeria’s Environmental Rights Action (1993-2013). He was a co-recipient of the 2010 Right Livelihood Award also known as the “Alternative Noble Prize”, and now serves on the Board of the Foundation. 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, as well as of the Association of Nigerian Authors, and has authored books on the environment, architecture and poetry. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of York, United Kingdom in July 2019. In 2023 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by York University, Canada and the Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan in 2024.

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), Oil Politics – Echoes of Ecological War (Daraja Press, 2016) and I See the Invisible — Poetry (DarajaPress, 2023; Kraft Books, 2024).