About Akinbode Matthew Oluwafemi

Akinbode Matthew Oluwafemi is a social justice campaigner with over two decades experience in journalism, development, public relations and social marketing. He is currently the Deputy Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigera (ERA/FoEN), Nigeria's foremost environmental rights advocacy group. Oluwafemi heads ERA/FoEN's Tobacco Control and the Water Campaign. He has been involved in various capacities in tobacco control initiatives in the African region. Akinbode is winner of the Bloomberg Award for Global Tobacco Control. Before joining ERA/FoEN, Oluwafemi was a journalist with The Guardian, Nigeria's leading national newspaper. As a journalist, he participated actively in the press freedom struggles during the despotic rule of the late General Sani Abacha. In the past few years he has channeled energy at building the "Our water, Our Right Coalition" which is challenging water privatisation in Lagos and across Nigeria.