By Edu Abade
The Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) has felicitated with its Executive Director, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, on winning the 2024 Wallenberg Medal.
With the recognition, Bassey is the first Nigerian and the fifth African to have received the award. He joins South Africa’s Helen Suzman (1992), Archbishop Desmond Tutu (2008), Rwanda’s Paul Rusesabagina (2005) and Congo’s Denis Mukwege (2010), among other winners of the award. Bassey’s other accomplishments are celebrated as he accepts the prestigious recognition.
The award took place September 10, 2024, at the Ross School of Business Robertson Auditorium, at the University of Michigan. The Wallenberg Medal is a tribute to outstanding humanitarians who have gone above and beyond to protect the vulnerable and oppressed, much like Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during World War II, whom the award was named after.
At the occasion, the Swedish Ambassador to the United States, Ambassador Urban Ahlin, extolled the virtues of Raoul Wallenberg and enjoined the audience to dedicate their lives to the cause of humanity so that they may be remembered just as Wallenberg was being recognized. Other speakers included the Chair of the awards committee, Professor Sioban Harlow and the provost of the university, Professor Laurie McCauley.
In his acceptance speech and lecture title We Are Relatives, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey stressed “love, humility, dignity and respect” as core to his vision of a livable future for all beings.” He stated that as an environmental justice advocate whose work has been based on the understanding the poly-crisis confronting us, we have a duty to always seek to uncover the roots of the crises rather than treating the symptoms.
“Seeking out those roots helps us avoid superficial responses and pursue real solutions, some of which may be unattainable in our lifetimes. One of our key struggles has been to understand the mindset that permits inequalities in our societies. The mindset that elevates might over care and love.
“The mindset that promotes the individual rather than the community and the mindset that refuses to understand that we are relatives. The mindset that grabs, trashes, feeds on the misery of others and a mindset that permits environmental racism.
“Understanding the roots of poly-crisis helps us to see the phenomenon of expanding sacrifice zones in our world today. It also placed on us the duty of standing with the oppressed to halt the expansion of sacrifice zones in Nigeria, in Africa, and elsewhere by seeking to overcome the energy and other hegemonic transitions that sacrifice nature and are driven by colonial extractivism built on embedded geopolitical power imbalances,” he said.
Speaking further, Bassey stated: “Climate action and inaction provide pictures that help us see the difficulties we face in trying to build a consensus that the climate crisis is a global crisis and not a national crisis. It also shows that the world is not yet ready to make the hard decisions by accepting that the pursuit of infinite growth on a finite planet is a false dream.”
HOMEF Director of Programmes, Joyce Brown, who spoke on behalf of the organization, applauded the Executive Director for his outstanding achievement, stating that Bassey’s exceptional work and contributions have led to undeniable global recognition.
It was also a veritable opportunity to showcase the work that HOMEF does and show the key place that cultural tools like poetry play in healing a hurting world.
Besides being an environmental activist, Bassey’s work includes significant environmental books like To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa (2012) and Oil Politics: Echoes of Ecological War.
His poetry, including We Thought It Was Oil But It Was Blood (1998), I Will Not Dance to Your Beat (2010) and the latest I See the Invisible (2024), continue to inspire the spirit of resistance and hope in all who read or listen to him.
