PLO Lumumba

Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (born 17 July 1962) is a Kenyan lawyer and activist.

According to Lumumba, he has practiced martial arts since 1975 and is a third Dan Black belt in shotokan karate.

Prof Lumumba is married to Celestine Lumumba and together, they have two daughters.

Lumumba has written several books on law and politics:

Lumumba was the secretary of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, whose proposed draft constitution was rejected in a 2005 referendum.

He is the director of the Kenya School of Law and served as the director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission from July 2010 to August 2017.

Lumumba earned his LLB and LLM degrees at the University of Nairobi.

His LLM thesis is titled National Security And Fundamental Rights. Additionally, Lumumba holds a PhD in Laws of the Sea from the University of Ghent in Belgium.

His PhD thesis is entitled Exclusive economic zone, the use delimitation of economic zones.

On 23 July 2010, Lumumba was named as the new director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission.

He took office on 26 July, succeeding Aaron Ringera.

The commission launched several high-profile investigations during his tenure, but none led to significant criminal convictions.

After just over a year in office, on 29 August 2011, Lumumba and his four deputies vacated their offices as required by the recently enacted Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission Act, which replaced the commission with a new Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.

During the parliamentary debate on the new legislation, several politicians had been highly critical of Lumumba's performance.

On 17 March 2014, Lumumba took office as director of the Kenya School of Law.

On August 28, 2015, the PAV Ansah Foundation invited Lumumba to speak at the 2015 PAVA Forum on "Good Governance and tiop, Whither Africa?"

At the lecture, Lumumba expressed his serious concern about the energy crises that African leaders have allowed to reach such a devastating stage.

Lumumba also talked about the issue of African youth fleeing the continent.

Lumumba blamed them on the economic hardships and the "misgovernment" from their leaders.

Lumumba encouraged African leaders to rise to the challenge of changing the fortunes of the continent.

In 2017, Lumumba gave a moving speech to youths in Kenya on importance of making bold choice at The Fearless conference 2017.

In July 2023, Lumumba gave the keynote speech at the ten-year anniversary celebration of the Economic Freedom Fighters, a South African political party.

The event, held at the University of Cape Town, attracted protests because of Lumumba's views about homosexuality, including his support for Uganda's anti-homosexuality bill.

In August 2018, he said that he would not seek another term in the office.

Lumumba is a notable Pan-Africanist and has delivered several speeches alluding to or about African solutions to African problems.

He is an admirer of Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, and of Patrice Lumumba and Thomas Sankara, the assassinated revolutionary leaders of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burkina Faso respectively.

Lumumba has referred to and quoted them several times in his speeches.

Lumumba is also remembered for his emotion-laden and energetic speech in Uganda at the third Anti-Corruption Convention.