PLO Lumumba says Chakwera is hope for ‘new Africa’ after Magufuli

Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, PLO, as he is popularly known,  has hailed Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera as the promising transformational leader for Africa and called his eulogy of  Tanazania’s late president John Pombe Magufuli “the most powerful tribute ever made to an African leader.”

Speaking on Pan-African TV Wednesday night,  PLO Lumumba said: “It was the most powerful, in my view the most touching ever made. It is a funeral oration which history must record as one the most greatest funeral orations of all time.”

The celebrated Pan-Africanist says he has henceforth requested a meeting with President Chakwera.

“My intention if he accepts my request, is to ask the Malawi president to be in the forefront of the leadership of a new Africa,” he said.

Continued PLO Lumumba: “Africa needs something new. I am not discounting the other great African leaders that did not attend the funeral. But Chakwera touched something that nobody touched.

“Everyone else was perfunctory and am being unfair to them for they had prepared speeches, but Chakwera spoke from his heart.”

He said: “Whether you like Chakwera or not, go and listen to him again, read him again, he captured the essence of the Magufuli that I met. The Magufuli that I know. The Magufuli who loved Africa. The Magufuli that thought that within the inner recesses of the African heart and mind, there is gold and silver which only is waiting to be unleashed.”

“When I said in 2014 that Africa needs to be magulified, I have been vindicated by Chakwera,” he concluded.

Lumumba is a Kenyan who served as the director of Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission from September 2010 to August 2011 and has been 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 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.

He is touched by Chakwera’s eulogy which the Malawi leader said:  “When they said laziness and sloth in public service cannot be cured, they did not see Magufuli coming.

“When they said the cartels of corruption strangling Africa’s governments cannot be defeated, they did not see Magufuli coming.

“When they said African States cannot become middle-income economies within a single presidential term, they did not see Magufuli.”

Chakwera referred to Magufuli, who died last week following heart complications at the age of 61, as “Africa’s finest son” whose “life of service” would be remembered.

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