Lazarus Tamana

Lazarus Tamana

Lazarus Tamana was born on the 6th of April 1957. He is a native of Bodo City, in Gokana Local Government Area of Ogoniland, Rivers State, Nigeria. He attended St Pius X College, Bodo city, Rivers State and proceeded to Servo Mihaj Institute of Science and Technology, Voivodina, Republic of Serbia, where he obtained HND qualification in Marine science. Mr. Tamana studied at the University of East London, UK, where he obtained a post graduate diploma in Management Studies and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) degree in Corporate Finance and Administration.

He has participated in numerous training programmes in Europe for nonviolent and peaceful struggles and also for the protection of Indigenous peoples of the world.
He was the President of the Movement For The Survival of The Ogoni People (MOSOP) UK from 1994 to 2009, and led a successful Ogoni and Nigerian campaign in the UK against the Military rule in Nigeria in the 1990s. He co-ordinated indigenous communities in Africa and South America for the formation of “Oil Watch” (an organization formed to protect the environment of Indigenous peoples from pollution from oil prospecting companies) in Quito, Ecuador, in 1996.

Mr. Tamana played a strategic role in the case of Indigenous Bodo people, who successfully sued Shell in the London court in 2014 for oil spills which occurred in Ogoniland in 2008. He has attended many strategic meetings of Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), at the Hague, where the welfare of Indigenous peoples is always top of the agenda.

He was part of a European observer mission to Nigeria for the 2003 Nigerian general elections.

As the European co-ordinator of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) from 1997 to 2019, Mr. Tamana worked closely over the years with MOSOP campaign partners in the UK and Europe.
Mr. Tamana has served on numerous boards, both in the UK and in Nigeria, including: Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organizations Foundation (UNPOF), the Ogoni Foundation and McCallister Energy Ltd.
Amongst his numerous academic and public engagements at home and abroad, Mr. Tamana has delivered lectures and given speeches in many UK universities and colleges, also at United Nations conferences in Geneva, London, Germany, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg: other countries include South Africa, Uganda, Mexico, Ecuador and USA.

Mr. Tamana is an international activist, a defender of human rights, environmental and Indigenous issues.
He is currently the President of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) Nigeria.


@laz Tamana

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