A generalized topology in a set X is a collection Cov X of families of subsets of X such that the triple (X, Cov X , Cov X ) is a generalized topological space in the sense of Delfs and Knebusch. In this work, notions of topological and admissible compactness of generalized topologies are introduced to begin and investigate a theory of compactifications, in particular, of Wallman type in the category of weakly normal generalized topological spaces. Among other facts, we prove in ZF that the ultrafilter theorem (in abbreviation UFT) holds if and only if all Wallman extensions of every weakly normal generalized topological space are compact. In consequence, we develop the theory of compactifications in ZF+UFT when it is not necessary to use AC, while ZF is not enough.