From PLO Lumumba Foundation Ghana Chapter to honouring its founder: Dr. Wemakor’s journey comes full circle

For Dr. Joseph Kobla Wemakor, the decision to honour renowned Kenyan legal scholar and Pan-Africanist Professor Patrick Loch Otieno (PLO) Lumumba in 2026 carried a significance that went beyond the presentation of an award.

Seven years earlier, Dr. Wemakor had joined the Ghana Chapter of the PLO Lumumba Foundation as Deputy Head of Media and Communication, later becoming Head of Media and Communication.

In 2026, as Executive Director of Human Rights Reporters Ghana (HRRG) and Founder and Convener of the HRRG Global RightsShield Awards, he found himself on the other side of that relationship—helping lead an institution that recognised the founder of the organisation with which his own professional journey had once been closely associated.

The experience, he described as a “very humbling full-circle moment,” reflects a transition from serving within a Pan-African institution to providing leadership within a Ghanaian human rights organisation with an expanding international recognition platform.

Dr. Wemakor’s appointment to the Ghana Chapter of the PLO Lumumba Foundation was publicly reported by GhanaWeb in February 2019, when he was named Deputy Head of Media and Communication.

During his time with the Foundation, Dr. Wemakor said he had opportunities to interact with Professor Lumumba through meetings, organizational engagements, and his public speeches.

“My relationship with Professor PLO Lumumba is not one I can describe simply as that of an admirer of a great African scholar. I had the privilege of serving with the PLO Lumumba Foundation Ghana Chapter, first as Deputy Head of Media and Communication and subsequently as Head of Media and Communication,” he said.

“That experience gave me the opportunity to interact with Professor Lumumba through meetings, engagements, and his public speeches, and I learned a great deal from him,” he added.

According to Dr Wemakor, the experience deepened his appreciation of Pan-Africanism and reinforced his understanding of the relationship between leadership, communication, human rights and social change.

He said principles including human dignity, responsible leadership, Pan-African solidarity, youth empowerment, and the use of communication to influence social change had remained important to his work.

“Looking back, I realise that some of the principles that guide my work today—human dignity, responsible leadership, Pan-African solidarity, youth empowerment, and the importance of using communication to influence social change—were strengthened during that period of my journey,” he said.

From serving to honouring

The symbolic connection became particularly significant in 2026 when HRRG selected Professor Lumumba for the HRRG Global RightsShield Award for Pan-African Legal Thought and Moral Leadership.

The inaugural HRRG Global RightsShield Awards were presented in Abuja, Nigeria, under the theme “Championing Human Rights and Democratic Renewal.”

The inaugural class brought together personalities and institutions from politics, government, civil society, human rights advocacy, youth leadership, local governance, sustainable development, and digital rights.

Other honourees included Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama; Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Ghana’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa; Ms. Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri of Spaces for Change, West Africa; Ing. Dr. George Asiedu, Coordinator of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area Sanitation and Water Project (GAMA-SWP); Hon. Alfredos Nii Anyetei, Municipal Chief Executive of the La Dade-Kotopon Municipal Assembly; Joshua Elikplim Adjei, Programme Officer of HRRG; Eminence Lead International LBG; and international digital rights organisation Access Now and its RightsCon Global Team.

The diversity of the inaugural honourees reflected the broad scope of the awards, which seek to recognise leadership and measurable contributions across human rights, democratic governance, civic freedoms, diplomacy, youth development, digital rights, local governance, and sustainable development.

Ing. Dr. Asiedu was recognised for sanitation and sustainable cities leadership, with HRRG citing his contribution to sanitation, water access, public health, and sustainable urban development, including a 2023 intervention that resulted in the provision of a toilet facility for a teenage girl and her family in Gbegbeyise.

Hon. Anyetei was recognised for local governance and community transformation, with HRRG highlighting his leadership in local governance, inclusive development, and sustainable community transformation.

It was within this broader inaugural class that Professor Lumumba received the HRRG Global RightsShield Award for Pan-African Legal Thought and Moral Leadership.

For Dr. Wemakor, the significance of the moment lay not simply in the award itself but in the reversal of roles that had taken place over seven years.

“In 2019, I was the one being given an opportunity to serve under the platform Professor Lumumba had built. Today, in 2026, I find myself in the position of leading an organisation that is recognising him,” he said.

He said the recognition should therefore not be viewed solely as HRRG honouring an individual.

“I see it as one African institution recognising another African institution of thought—a man whose ideas, speeches, scholarship, and example have influenced many of us who continue to work for a better Africa,” he said.

The basis for the recognition

HRRG said Professor Lumumba was selected for the award because of his contribution to legal scholarship, ethical leadership, constitutionalism, good governance, and Pan-African unity.

The citation accompanying the award highlighted his intellectual leadership, ethical courage, and advocacy for constitutionalism, good governance, and African unity.

Professor Lumumba is widely known as a Kenyan legal scholar, public intellectual, and advocate of Pan-Africanism.

His career has included senior public, academic, and policy positions in Kenya, as well as extensive public engagement on governance, constitutionalism, leadership, and African development.

His influence has also extended beyond Kenya through lectures and public engagements across the continent.

A professional journey shaped by communication and advocacy

Dr. Wemakor’s professional trajectory since his time with the PLO Lumumba Foundation has expanded from journalism and communications into human rights advocacy, civil society mobilisation and institutional leadership.

As Executive Director of HRRG, he has been involved in human rights advocacy, media campaigns, youth development, and civil society initiatives.

HRRG subsequently established the Global RightsShield Awards as an international recognition platform for individuals and institutions contributing to human rights, democracy, justice, civic freedoms, sustainable development, and human dignity.

For Dr. Wemakor, the journey demonstrates how professional opportunities and exposure to influential African thinkers can shape the development of emerging leaders.

“Professor Lumumba may not know the full extent to which his words and example have influenced people like me. But I know what I learned,” he said.

He expressed appreciation for the opportunity he received through the PLO Lumumba Foundation and said the experience had remained part of the foundation upon which his subsequent advocacy and leadership work had developed.

The 2026 recognition therefore represents more than an award to a prominent African scholar. It also marks a notable point in Dr. Wemakor’s professional journey—from a communications role within the Ghana Chapter of an institution founded around Professor Lumumba’s Pan-African vision to leading an organisation that would later recognise the scholar himself.

For him, the moment represents not the end of that journey but a reminder of how mentorship, institutional exposure, and ideas can travel across generations and eventually return in unexpected ways.