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Okiya Omtatah: How a man with no law degree became Kenya's courtroom warrior

Busia Senator, Okiya Omtatah pumps a fist of defiance as he is detained with other protesters following a stand off with anti-riot police while demanding the release of those allegedly abducted by state security agencies in Nairobi on December 30, 2024. [AFP]

From chaining himself at Vigilance House to blocking MPs from awarding themselves hefty perks, and now suing both President Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto’s governments for plunging the country into a Sh4.6 trillion debt, Robert Wanjala tells the story of how a man with no law degree became Kenya’s courtroom warrior and now he wants to be the country’s next president.

The story of this playwright begins in a little-known small village of Kwang’amor in Busia County, at 9pm on November 30, 1961. Inside a thatched-roof mud house dimly lit by a kerosene lamp, his grandmother helped deliver a baby boy, who arrived earlier than expected. In the next room, his father was glued to the BBC radio, listening to Winston Churchill celebrate his 87th birthday. The boy shares a birthday with Britain’s wartime bulldog, his father chuckled.

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