Nnimmo Bassey, the Executive Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), has been conferred with an honorary Doctorate in Law by York University during the university’s fall convocation held on October 13.
York University, Toronto, is the third largest university in Canada.
While expressing gratitude, Bassey stated, among other things, that “Belonging to the York University family offers a layer of strength for me and my constituencies. This is indeed a time to stand together to demand justice in all circumstances, to call for an end to ecocide, to build solidarity and not walls, and to restore hope in our time. I dedicate this honor to the martyrs of extractivism and environmental defenders everywhere. The red lines the dictatorship crossed set me on a lifelong journey of standing for environmental rights as the essential basis for enjoying the right to life. It has been quite a journey loaded with inescapably fixing one’s attention on environmental horrors, some unimaginable and indescribable. While the journey has been mainly across the African continent and the sacrifice zones of the global south, we cannot fail to acknowledge the resistance and resilience of our relatives in the global north who face similar circumstances and continue to fight for environmental justice, dignity, and fundamental rights in the efforts to decolonize their territories.”
Bassey further talked about the judicial murders and assaults on communities. “The wheels of oppression at home were oiled by crude oil and sundry extractivist activities. Capital trumped concerns for the health of Mother Earth and her children. Complaints against destroying the ecosystems and livelihoods were met with brute force. Whole communities were sacked or crushed. Oil spills and routine gas flaring pumped cocktails of noxious elements and gases into the environment, birthing cancers, birth defects, and breathing diseases, cutting life expectancy to mere whispers.
“At this time, Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni leaders stood out and called for environmental Justice. Later, we learned from Saro-Wiwa’s last writings before his murder that the organising energy rose from the conviction that “silence was treason” in the face of the debilitating pollution!”
The Dean & Professor of the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University Alice J. Hovorka, during her citation of the renowned environmentalist, stated that Bassey has built an irrefutable legacy as an agent of change that will improve the lives of generations to come. “As a longtime champion of sustainability and environmental justice, nurtured by a deep-rooted commitment to the environment, his journey has been relentless advocacy, insightful scholarship, and tireless action.
Bassey has mobilized and amplified the voices of communities often marginalized in pursuing industrial and economic interests on a continent bearing the brunt of colonialism and unchecked industrial-scale extraction of minerals. In an era where environmentalism was predominantly driven by Euro-Western perspectives, Bassey played a pivotal role in embedding environmental justice in global discourse, ensuring that the narrative remained inclusive and representative.”
Hovorka stated that Bassey was considered following his continued quest to promote counter-hegemonic scholarship and activism that fully embraces decolonized environmental ideologies.
This conferment from York University is the second honorary doctorate that Bassey has received. The first was from the University of York in the United Kingdom in 2019. He has won several laurels, including being named a Hero of the Environment by Time Magazine in 2009, the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel) in 2010, the Rafto Prize in 2012, and Nigeria’s National Honour of Member of the Federal Republic (MFR) in 2014. Bassey, an architect, poet, and writer, is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Architects (2014) and will be inducted by the Association of Nigerian Authors at its conference in November 2023.
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