Dr. Chidi Odinkalu was recipient of the 2013 Anti-corruption Defender Award and was honoured for his integrity, hardwork, unconcealed crusade for the enthronement of human rights – even at the risk of his career; and his dogged stance against corruption.
Academic, author, human rights activist and currently Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Dr. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu is unarguably a colossus in the field and practice of human rights. He has lent his voice on many occasions to situations of rights abuse, restoring justice and respect for human right in all the situations. Also senior legal officer for the Africa Program of the Open Society Justice Initiative, OSJI, Odinkalu is a renowned lawyer and advocate with a Ph.D. in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a visiting professor, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.
He was, prior to joining the Open Society Justice Initiative, senior legal officer for Africa and the Middle East at the International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights in London, Human Rights Advisor to the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone, and Brandeis International Fellow at the Centre for Ethics, Justice and Public Life of the Brandeis University, Massachusetts.
Odinkalu is the first public officer to publicize the contents of his asset declaration forms and continues to trail the blaze in transparency and accountability in service.
He has consulted for and advised organisations such as the Ford Foundation, the World Bank, the African Union, and the International Council for Human Rights Policy, Geneva, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, and the World Economic Forum among other world bodies and is the founder of the Section on Public Interest and Development Law (SPIDEL) at the Nigerian Bar and member of the Executive Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association. He is a member of the boards of several international non-governmental organisations and institutions including the Human Rights Advisory Council of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, the Fund for Global Human Rights and of the International Refugee Rights Initiative.
