Ɔbenfo (Professor) Ọbádélé Bakari Kambon, PhD

“Ɔbenfo” Ọbádélé Bakari Kambon, Nana Kwame Pɛbi Datɛ I, helps Black people repatriate and get Ghanaian citizenship at RepatriateToGhana.com. He is a world-renowned master linguist, multi-award-winning scholar and the architect of Abibitumi the oldest and largest Black social education network on the planet. He completed his PhD in Linguistics at the University of Ghana in 2012, winning the prestigious Vice-Chancellor’s award for the Best PhD Thesis in the Humanities. He also won the 2016 and 2024 Provost’s Publications Awards for best published work in the UG College of Humanities. In 2019 he was the recipient of the [Nana] Marcus Mosiah Garvey Foundation award for excellence in Afrikan Studies and Education. Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé Kambon was awarded the 2020/2021 University of Lagos (UNILAG) Lagos Area Cluster Centre (LACC) Fellowship where he contributed significantly to the work of “reconfiguring” Afrikan Studies. In 2025, he was awarded the Kwame Nkrumah Award for Pan-African Leadership by the Pan-African Leadership Institute (PALI). He is an Associate Professor and served as Head of the Language, Literature and Drama Section of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana and also served as  Editor-in-Chief of the Ghana Journal of Linguistics (2016-2023). He served as Secretary of the African Studies Association of Africa from 2015-2020. He also played an instrumental role in 34 Abibifo ‘Black People’ of the Diaspora receiving Ghanaian citizenship in 2016 and many more receiving citizenship in 2019, 2022, and 2024. Having contributed to the Government of Ghana’s  official Diaspora Engagement Policy, he now assists others interested in repatriation via RepatriateToGhana.com‘s Decade of Our Repatriation (DOOR Initiative), which has been endorsed by the Government of Ghana (Diaspora Affairs, Office of the President and Ghana Tourism Development Company). His multidisciplinary research interests include Serial Verb Construction Nominalization, Historical Linguistics, sbAyt nt Kmt(yw) ‘Studies of Black People’, & Abibifahodie ‘Black Liberation’.  

Ọbádélé Bakari Kambon, Ph.D. is the loving husband of Kala Kambon and caring father of Ama, Kwaku, Akosua, Afia and Nana Yaw Kambon.

Ɔbenfo (Professor) Kambon is a multi-award winning scholar, language teacher, retired Editor-in-Chief and Associate Professor at IAS-UG.

He is also known by his stool name, Nana Kwame Pɛbi Date I, Ban mu Kyidɔmhene of Akuapem-Mampɔn, ruler of the rearguard.

Known as “Africano” in Capoeira circles, Ɔbenfo (Professor) Kambon began his training in 1998 and has taught Asako (Black Combat Capoeira) in Accra and Tema since 2009.

Featured Publications

Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé Kambon Publications

The Construction of Black Civilization Volume I: The Classical Kmt(.y.w) ‘Black People’ Origins of sxm km ‘Black Power’ “Pan-Afrikanism” And The Dikènga Theory of Self-Identification As Kmt(.y.w) ‘Black People’ (Vol. I).

Book
Ọbádélé Kambon
Kambon, Ọ., (2026). The Construction of Black Civilization Volume I: The Classical Kmt(.y.w) ‘Black People’ Origins of sxm km ‘Black Power’ “Pan-Afrikanism” And The Dikènga Theory of Self-Identification As Kmt(.y.w) ‘Black People’ (Vol. I). BlackNificent Books/Afrikan World Books. (In press)
Publication year: 2026

#gandhiMustFall, #augustusMustFall, Temporal Reality, mAat and srwḏ tꜢ n Kmt ‘Restoring the Land of Black People’

Book Chapter
Ọbádélé Kambon
#gandhiMustFall, #augustusMustFall, Temporal Reality, mAat and srwḏ tꜢ n Kmt ‘Restoring the Land of Black People’. In S. Makoni, B. E. Antia, & S. Rudwick (Eds.), Language and Race. Routledge.
Publication year: 2025

Aspects of Akan Verbal Semantics

Book
E. Kweku Osam, Ọbádélé Bakari Kambon
Aspects of Akan Verbal Semantics
Publication year: 2023

Education

  • Ph.D. 2012

    Ph.D. in Linguistics (Honors)

    University of Ghana

  • M.A. 2005

    M.A. in Linguistics

    University of Wisconsin - Madison

  • M.A. 2005

    M.A. in African Languages and Literature

    University of Wisconsin - Madison

  • B.A. 2002

    B.A. in African American Studies (Magna Cum Laude)

    Morehouse College

Positions

  • Present2021

    Associate Professor

    University of Ghana - Institute of African Studies

  • 20212017

    Senior Research Fellow

    University of Ghana - Institute of African Studies

  • 20172014

    Research Fellow

    University of Ghana - Institute of African Studies

  • 20112011

    Lecturer

    African University College of Communications

  • 20082007

    Adjunct Professor

    Chicago State University

  • 20062005

    Adjunct Professor

    Northeastern Illinois University

  • 20052003

    Teaching Assistant

    University of Wisconsin Madison

“Dr Kambon leaves no one in doubt about the depth and breadth of his knowledge. The quality of his scholarship is breath-taking.”

– Anonymous peer reviewer (for application to position of Associate Professor)

My Awards

  • 2024
    2024 Provost's Publication Awards for the Late-Career Best Published Work Category
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  • 2020/2021
    University of Lagos (UNILAG) Lagos Area Cluster Centre (LACC) Fellowship
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  • 2019
    Nana Marcus Mosiah Garvey Foundation Award
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  • 2016
    Provost Publications Award (Early Career)

    This Award is presented to Dr. Ọbádélé Kambon (Research Fellow, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana) as the winner of the 2016 Provost Publications Award (Early Career). The award is based on your Paper titled: “Theory of Endogenous and Exogenous Motivation in L2 Migration” which was published in Per Linguam, 31(2) 2015. Your article has been noted to be a great input in the area of language teaching and learning and this work will be used by many researchers and foreign language teachers.

    Also, your work is deemed as provocative, perceptive and a well researched paper that has unmistakable relevance for the teaching and learning of foreign languages and target languages.

    Your write-up is an original contribution which challenges current theories that account for second language acquisition.
    Dr. Ọbádélé Kambon, for your outstanding contribution to knowledge and scholarship and for breaking new grounds, the College of Humanities is proud to award you the 2016 Provost Publications Award (Early Career).

    Congratulations,
    Professor Samuel Agyei-Mensah
    Provost, College of Humanities, University of Ghana

  • 2012
    Vice-Chancellor's Award for the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation (Humanities)

    The candidate’s review of the pertinent literature is fresh, detailed, and chronologically well done. The candidate took great pains in identifying participants for the research and in gathering the relevant data. This is impressive in syntax-semantic research given the fact that syntacticians often avoid field linguistics!

    The dissertation is very well written and I am willing to pass it without any reservation whatsoever. The content is excellent as is its rendition. Even though some of the examples may no longer be in use in synchronic Akan, the fact that the Candidate acknowledges the source(s) and frames such examples within his methodological and theoretical frameworks make the work a blend of diachrony with synchrony. I am happy with this kind of approach!

    Very little has been done on Akan nominalization in general and little to nothing on SVC nominalization in particular, so this study is a trailblazer or a path-finder! Syntacticians and semanticists will cite this work and continue with the discussion and issues it raises for the next couple of decades. I am impressed with the details and both the candidate and his advisors must be commended for the high degree of systematicity employed in the synthesis and analyses done in the study.

    Samuel Gyasi Obeng, DPhil

    Professor and Director

  • 2002-2005
    Foreign Language and Area Studies Award
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    Funding for Advanced Study of the Akan (Twi), Yorùbá, Wolof and Kikôngo languages.
  • 1997-2002
    Full Academic Scholarship Morehouse College
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    Full Academic Scholarship Morehouse College. Academic Scholarship for matriculation towards a degree in African American Studies
  • 1997
    National Merit Scholarship Award
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    National Merit Scholarship for outstanding college-bound high school graduate in the amount of $2,500.
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