ABOUT

Osai Ojigho is a human rights expert, gender equality advocate, lawyer, and civil society leader leading teams at International Non-Governmental Organisations, civil society networks, advocacy coalitions and policy research consulting firms. She has extensive experience working in international development, on the African Human Rights System, peace and security, gender justice and good governance. In her current role as Policy and Campaigns director, she is leading Christian Aid’s advocacy on key priorities such as, climate justice, gender justice, economic justice, peacebuilding, good governance, and human rights. Previously, country director of Amnesty International Nigeria, Interim Pan-Africa Director Oxfam GB, Oxfam Pan African Programme manager, and state of the union coalition coordinator, in Nairobi, Kenya. She was also a human rights observer with the African Union Mission in Mali and the Sahel, and Deputy Executive Director, Alliances for Africa.

She is well travelled and widely published, contributing to various publications and conferences on issues of human rights protection, strengthening the African regional human rights system, access to justice, women’s leadership and participation in politics and governance, sexual and gender-based violence, gender equality, freedom of expression, strategic litigation, civic space rights and international justice. Osai volunteers her time to mentor emerging civil society leaders and development practitioners.

She has been recognized as one of the 18 phenomenal African feminists to know and celebrate. She was named one of 100 Most Influential Civil Society Leaders in Nigeria in 2021. She has used her legal skills and human rights background in strategic litigation on women’s rights. In 2014, she led a team of lawyers to bring a case of gender discrimination and gender-based violence before the West African ECOWAS court to challenge state agents’ abuse of women. This led to the first judgment (Dorothy Njemanze v Nigeria) decided on the African protocol on the rights of women (Maputo Protocol) by a regional court in 2017. In 2021, she was part of a team of experts that submitted an amicus curiae brief to the International Court (ICC) that forced Marriage constitutes other inhumane act committed by the defendant in the case of Prosecutor v Ongwen. The ICC agreed with the submission and its Appeals Chamber in December 2022 upheld the trial chamber’s decision that the defendant Ongwen was guilty of the crime of forced marriage and other international crimes. She is the University of Wolverhampton 2023 Global Impact Awardee.

She is, a member of the Association of Women in Development (AWID), the Institute for African Women in Law (IAWL), the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), International Bar Association, a founding member of the West African Women Elections Observation (WAWEO) team and a life member of the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU). She is also a member of RINGO – Re-Imagining the INGO project, a systems change initiative that seeks to transform global civil society to respond to today’s challenges. Osai is positive that with the right mix of creativity, empathy and social consciousness, one is poised to change the world for the better.

She was called to the Nigerian Bar in 2000. Osai holds a LLB from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, a LLM from the University of Wolverhampton, UK, and a practice diploma in International Human Rights from the College of Law England and Wales, UK. 

She contributed a chapter in Gender, Judging and the Courts in Africa: Selected Studies (Routledge) 2021