Environmental Rights Action (ERA) congratulates Nnimmo Bassey a foremost environmentalist, architect, founding father of our dear organization, poet, and director of Africa’s ecological think tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation,(HOMEF) for receiving the prestigious Wallenberg Medal Award from the University of Michigan, United States of America; The Wallenberg Medal for the year 2024.
This medal is a celebration of the extraordinary and selfless work of Raoul Wallenberg epitomized by an exemplary, compassionate, humane, and sacrificial service to humanity and nature.
Today we celebrate Nnimmo, a man whose work thrives beyond the construction of physical structures but well unto intersectionality, complexity, and mergers of spatiality and relationality of people and nature. We celebrate a living legend whose outstanding leadership, with an organic passion and green knowledge for social and environmental justice continues to inspire men, women, communities, and institutions around the world.
For over 30 years his works in the human and environmental rights field, have highlighted that denying any human right is a threat to life and that environmental abuse deeply negates our right to life. Bassey’s journey in the struggle for justice was birthed in the autocratic reign of military dictatorship in Nigeria and the inexorable move into the struggles for socioecological justice that is growing from an awareness that our liberties mean little when our relationship with Mother Earth is shattered by pollution of our water, land, and air.
While we celebrate the humble African of Nigerian origin, we are reminded that his works are the emancipation and preservation of the peoples and their environment in the Global South.
His medal is a voice that calls for rapid response by the Nigerian state to the plight of the people in Northern Nigeria, communities of Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa State who have been inundated by the floods from a failed dam – the Kiri Dam, in the Chelleng Local Government Area, which has destroyed many homes, farms, and sources of livelihood and rendered many to be refugees in their land.
The flood has affected more than ten (10) communities namely; Duhu, Mayo Maradi, Kirchinga, Maiwandu, Jahili, Kokohu, Lumadu, Zhau, Pallam, Kwambula, Shuwari, and Shuwa all of Madagali Local Government Area which according to the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) it has destroyed 927 households and have also displace over 5281 people.
It calls for climate justice for those who have contributed the least to the climate crisis,
The time to stop paying lip service to solving the climate crisis is now. The Global North must certainly lead in the process to stop the expansion of sacrifice zones, they must pay for the loss and damages incurred by the People in the Global South. The Nigerian government must seek alternatives to fossil fuels, we must not approve new oil fields to be open.
There is a need for rapid response by the Borno State Government, and the Nigerian state and help from well-meaning Nigerians will help to resettle the displaced people now and after the floods.