Sokari Ekine

Sokari Ekine is a Nigerian activist, blogger and author. She worked as a journalist at the Pambazuka News and has also written for Feminist Africa and New Internationalist. Ekine kept a blog between 2004 and 2014 in which she covered a number of topics including LGBTI rights, women's rights, and environmental issues. She has co-written or edited four books, and taught English to school children in Haiti.

Ekine has edited the books Blood and Oil: Testimonies of Violence from Women of the Niger Delta (2001), SMS Uprising: Mobile Phone Activism in Africa (2010), African Awakenings with Firoze Manji (2011), and Queer African Reader with Hakima Abbas (2013).

Life Ekine was born in Nigeria to a Nigerian father and British mother. She grew up in Nigeria but moved to England to attend college. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in new technology and a Master of Arts degree in rights in education from the Institute of Education at the University of London. Her first venture online was in 1995 when she founded the Black Sisters Network email list. Ekine was treated for cancer in 2000, a factor in her move to Spain with her partner in 2004. Common writing topics were LGBTI rights in Africa, gender identity, militarisation, human rights, art, the oil industry in the Niger Delta, Haiti, activism. and land rights.

Ekine has also written for Feminist Africa and New Internationalist. Ekine visited Haiti as online editor of Pambazuka News in 2007 to meet with women organizers for Fanmi Lavalas.

In 2003 she was awarded an International Reporting Project fellowship from Johns Hopkins University and commissioned to write on health care in the country. SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa. Pambazuka, 2010. . Texts by Ken Banks, Nathan Eagle, Juliana Rotich, Christiana Charles-Iyoha, Anil Naidoo, Berna Twanza Ngolobe, Christian Kreutz, Redante Asuncion-Reed, and Amanda Atwood. African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions. Pambazuka, 2011. Co-edited with Firoze Manji. . Queer African Reader. Pambazuka, 2013. Co-edited with Hakima Abbas. .

Quotes From an excerpt in SMS Uprising: Mobile Phone Activism in Africa: "For social change to take place technology needs to be appropriate and rooted in local knowledge."