AFRICA IN THE 2010S DECADE
Lawyers played a centre stage in the history of the world and of Africa. In a separate instalment, Africa Legal News features female lawyers who shaped Africa. In this two-part instalment, we highlight their male counterparts. In the first issue, we look at PLO Lumumba, Jordan Kinyera and Chidi Odinkalu. We also feature Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi of South Africa and the late President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.
Lawyers played a centre stage in the history of the world and of Africa. In a separate instalment, Africa Legal News features female lawyers who shaped Africa. In this two-part instalment, we highlight their male counterparts. In the first issue, we look at PLO Lumumba, Jordan Kinyera and Chidi Odinkalu. We also feature Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi of South Africa and the late President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.
1. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (Kenya)
Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, better known as Professor PLO Lumumba is a lawyer based in Kenya. He served as Director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission from September 2010 to August 2011. He has also been Director of the Kenya School of Laws.
Lumumba has been an outspoken advocate for transparency and democracy, and this has earned him awards as well as enmity by the other African States. In 2018, he was denied entry into Zambia where he was due to address a forum on China Africa relations.
He is the author of Kenya’s Quest for a Constitution: The Postponed Promise, Call for political hygiene in Kenya and many other works on law and politics.
Lumumba holds a PhD in Laws of the sea from the University of Ghent in Belgium.
2. Tembeka Ngcukaitobi (South Africa)
Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi is a lawyer and writer from South Africa. Ngcukaitobi is a member of the South African Law Reform Commission.
Ngcukaitobi has been a critical part of the recent Southern African political and legal history. Ngcukaitobi represented the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters in a case arguing for the State Capture Report to be released in the North Gauteng High Court. He was also part of the legal team challenging Zimbabwe’s 2018 elections.
Ngcukaitobi is the author of The Land Is Ours: South Africa’s First Black Lawyers and the Birth of Constitutionalism.
Ngcukaitobi also worked extensively on the public interest law sector at the Legal Resources Centre, a leading South African public interest law centre where he became Director of its Constitutional Litigation Unit.
He holds a BProc, LLB (Unitra), LLM (Rhodes) and LLM (London School of Economics).
3. Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)
Robert Mugabe was the Prime Minister and former President of Zimbabwe, having led the county to independence from white settler rule in 1980. The 2010s finally saw the steeping seen of long-time leader Robert Mugabe, a man of many professions including law, economics, public management and education
Mugabe stepped down after a military-led uprising in2018 and was to die two years later in September 2019. His removal from office has been a subject of debate on constitutionalism.
Robert Mugabe is sworn in as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe in 1980
Part of the AfricaLegalNews Africa in the 2010s Decade Series
Lawyers played a centre stage in the history of the world and of Africa. In a separate instalment, Africa Legal News features female lawyers who shaped Africa. In this two-part instalment, we highlight their male counterparts. In the first issue, we look at PLO Lumumba, Jordan Kinyera and Chidi Odinkalu. We also feature Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi of South Africa and the late President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.
1. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (Kenya)
Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, better known as Professor PLO Lumumba is a lawyer based in Kenya. He served as Director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission from September 2010 to August 2011. He has also been Director of the Kenya School of Laws.
Lumumba has been an outspoken advocate for transparency and democracy, and this has earned him awards as well as enmity by the other African States. In 2018, he was denied entry into Zambia where he was due to address a forum on China Africa relations.
He is the author of Kenya’s Quest for a Constitution: The Postponed Promise, Call for political hygiene in Kenya and many other works on law and politics.
Lumumba holds a PhD in Laws of the sea from the University of Ghent in Belgium.
2. Tembeka Ngcukaitobi (South Africa)
Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi is a lawyer and writer from South Africa. Ngcukaitobi is a member of the South African Law Reform Commission.
Ngcukaitobi has been a critical part of the recent Southern African political and legal history. Ngcukaitobi represented the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters in a case arguing for the State Capture Report to be released in the North Gauteng High Court. He was also part of the legal team challenging Zimbabwe’s 2018 elections.
Ngcukaitobi is the author of The Land Is Ours: South Africa’s First Black Lawyers and the Birth of Constitutionalism.
Ngcukaitobi also worked extensively on the public interest law sector at the Legal Resources Centre, a leading South African public interest law centre where he became Director of its Constitutional Litigation Unit.
He holds a BProc, LLB (Unitra), LLM (Rhodes) and LLM (London School of Economics).
3. Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)
Robert Mugabe was the Prime Minister and former President of Zimbabwe, having led the county to independence from white settler rule in 1980. The 2010s finally saw the steeping seen of long-time leader Robert Mugabe, a man of many professions including law, economics, public management and education
Mugabe stepped down after a military-led uprising in2018 and was to die two years later in September 2019. His removal from office has been a subject of debate on constitutionalism.
Robert Mugabe made a tremendous influence, both negative and positive, on Pan-Africanism and back empowerment as well as on legal and political developments in Zimbabwe and the Third World in his lifetime.
Mugabe earned two law degrees in prison in the pre-independence days, namely a Bachelor and a Master of Laws from the University of London (External Programme) among other qualifications.
4. Jordan Kinyera (Uganda)
Jordan Kinyera is a lawyer from Uganda. He attained his law degree after seeing his family lose its land. The High Court of Appeal in Uganda finally ruled in his father’s favour in 2019, finalising over two decades of legal disputes. He is now involved in assisting other people engaged in similar conflicts. His case is compelling in Africa, where several people lose land in disputes with corporates or to wealthy individuals who can afford to hire big-name lawyers.
Jordan Kinyera
5. Chidi Odinkalu (Nigeria)
Chidi Odinkalu is a lawyer and human rights activist from Nigeria. He has also worked as a law lecturer and writer. He was chairperson of Nigeria’s National Human Rights. He advised various international organisations such as the Ford Foundation, World Bank, African Union and International Council for Human Rights Policy, Geneva; and many others. In 2018, he co-authored Too Good to Die: Third Term and the Myth of the Indispensable Man in Africa .
Odinkalu is currently the Senior Managing Legal Officer for the Open Society Foundation’s Open Society Justice Initiative.
Odinkalu holds a PhD in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
