Chima Williams

Chima Williams is an environmental fighter, an environmental lawyer who fights environmental unfairness and held a big business company like Shell to pay fines they have caused and brought about on some communities in the Niger-Delta. He is also the founder of the first student environmental justice group in Nigeria. He was given the name the Earth’s foremost defenders.

Work

Williams as a student joined the Nigerian Environmental Movement in the 1990s where he offered to work for free for Environmental Rights Action (ERA), an NGO which was created in 1993, which promotes for environmental rights in Nigeria. In 1998, Chima founded the first Student environmental justice group in Nigeria. He has been serving as an environmental lawyer suing multinational companies on environmental dirtying cases in Nigeria. On October 2020, He was made the Executive Director of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN). Environmental Rights Action (ERA) which is a promoter NGO founded on 11 January 1993 in Nigeria to fight environmental human rights issues in Nigeria. ERA is the Nigerian chapter of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI).

Prizes won

Williams is one of the people the won a 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize across the world. He is the third Nigerian to get the prize. The award was given for his work in protecting the Earth by holding Royal Dutch Shell responsible for oil spillage from their equipment into the Niger Delta communities. The Goldman award is given to honour and to thank the work of grassroots environmental fighter across the world who are working to protect the Earth.