Nekpen Obasogie is the key host of NEBO TV in Toronto, Canada. Her journey to shape the trajectory of the world around her started When she arrived Canada in 2008; she took a decisive step to adapt to Canadian and educational life. She had to repeat her high school education, not minding that she was in her thirties. Today, she has a first degree in sociology and a second in law and society, a master’s degree in social work, and, to boot, a certificate in refugee and migration studies. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at OISE/University of Toronto. As Nekpen climbed the academic ladder to a Ph.D. level, it was accompanied by innovation, development in research, and community service. So far, she has initiated several organizations and written three research-based history books on colonialism in Africa.
Some of the accomplishments include:
- In 2022, she founded (Manager) the Canadian Multicultural Centre (NCMC). NCMC is a non-profit organization based in Etobicoke Center that produces programs and cultural festivals to enhance Canada’s ethnic diversity and multiculturalism. NCMC emphasizes and promotes Canadian ethnic pluralism at the local and national levels of the country.
- In 2017, she founded NEBO TV Canada. Her online television NEBO TV) was inspired and birthed by an organization she founded at York University called Immigrant Women’s Alliance (IWA) in 2015. She has used the platform to document research-based documentaries about Africa and Canada. The Edo Language Day event she hosted in Toronto, in partnership with the University of Toronto and other parts of the world this year, was impactful as it brought awareness to many indigenous people worldwide on the importance of preserving their languages and how language relates to their cultural identity.
- In 2022, Nekpen made history when she initiated the Edo Language Day Worldwide. The Edo Language Day initiative is her response to the warning by the United Nations over the extinction of Indigenous languages worldwide. It has been estimated that at least 50 percent of today’s spoken languages will be extinct or seriously endangered by 2100. Edo language is not exempted from the list of Indigenous languages that are gradually becoming extinct. Nekpen declared Edo Language Day Worldwide at the first Edo Language Seminar she organized on NEBO TV on August 13th, 2022. Nekpen hosted the first Edo Language Day Worldwide event at the Univerity of Toronto in Toronto and four other locations worldwide this year.
- In 2023, Nekpen was appointed the Toronto Chapter Lead for the Canadian Black Chamber of Commerce.
- From 2021 to 2023, She served as the Assistant Secretary of the Nigerian Canadian Association (GTA).
- In 2015, she founded the Immigrant Women’s Alliance and was the president from 2015 to 2019.
- From 2021 till today, she has authored three books:
- In 2023, she was appointed the Diaspora African Konnect (DAK) lead researcher (an international organization in the United Kingdom).
- In 2022, she set up a committee (Benin Artifacts Restitution) to oversee and campaign for the restitution of Benin Cultural Artifacts that were looted from Benin by the British colonists in 1897.
