Who is PLO Lumumba?
Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba is a Kenyan who served as the director of Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission from September 2010 to August 2011 and is currently the director of The Kenya School of Law, a position he has held since 2014.
He is an advocate of the High Courts of Kenya and Tanzania and law lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Nairobi.
He is one of the trustees and the executive director of the African Institute of Leaders and Leadership, Nairobi, Kenya.
PLO, as he is popularly known, received his LL.B and LL.M degrees in law at the University of Nairobi, followed by a PhD in the laws of the sea from the University of Ghent in Belgium.
His speech at the third Anti-Corruption Convention in Uganda in 2013, The Tragedy of Africa, is so popular that it has thousands of views on YouTube.
It was his view that levels of tolerance in corruption leaves a lot to be desired as those who engage in corruption love it while those who do not directly accommodate it.
“We live in a continent where we celebrate thieves and vilify good men and women. That is the tragedy of Africa. While every other continent has moved in the right direction, Africa still remains—in the words of Tony Blair—as the scar in the conscience of humanity,” Lumumba is famous for observing on corruption.
A former anti-corruption director who was removed under controversial circumstances, Lumumba has admitted that he was not prepared to head the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) because, in his words, he discovered that he was appointed to appear to be fighting corruption.
It was during his reign that Parliament in Kenya disbanded the KACC and kicked him out and four directors in the commission.n
