Long time Moi lawyer was lethal in court

He walked out of the Kenya School of Law in 1975 and it did not take long before he would dominate the Bar as he entrenched himself in legal practice.

Mutula Kilonzo was a brilliant law student who graduated with a First Class honours degree from the University of Dar-es-Salaam a year earlier. His story in the legal circles that saw him become one of President Moi’s most trusted lawyers reads like a movie.

Though he did his pupilage at a Nairobi law firm owned by a former chairman of the defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya, the late Samuel Kivuitu and lawyer Kasanga Mulwa, he would later walk out after he became too expensive for the firm’s walk-in clients.

Mr Kilonzo started off from a single room office space at Kirima House opposite Jeevanjee Gardens owned by former assistant minister, the late Gerishon Kirima.

But the turning point in his lengthy and successful legal career was when he met former Kanu stalwart Hosea Kiplagat in 1977. The former State House baron was buying land from a group of Taveta-based Mbooni miners who were Mr Kilonzo’s clients.

In 1979, Mr Kiplagat came calling. He asked Mr Kilonzo, who kept a goatee, to have it shaved and get himself a new suit for an appointment the next day with a “serious” VIP.

The following day, Mr Kilonzo accompanied Mr Kiplagat to the Kabarnet Gardens where he met then President Moi for the first time. He would go on to represent Mr Moi in several cases, including election petitions, land transactions and property deals.

One of the most recent cases that Mr Kilonzo won with ease was a Sh200 million suit against the Attorney-General and the National Assembly on the nomination of MPs to the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) in 2005 at the East African Court of Justice.

He was representing Mrs Charity Ngilu, Ms Yvone Khamati and Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o in a suit which overturned the nominations made by Kenya to Eala.

“He was very much in control as a lawyer. I remember that he would join us at River Road to board a bus to Arusha every time we travelled for our case which we eventually won,” Ms Khamati told the Sunday Nation Saturday.

In 2002, he successfully prosecuted an appeal case in which the High Court had awarded Kiambu General Transport Agency Ltd, associated with  former Defence Minister, the late Njenga Karume, Sh241,586,711.58 against Kenya Breweries Limited.

Mr Kilonzo also successfully represented Mbooni Ranching Cooperative Society against businessman James Mbugua Gichinga in a dispute over a building owned by the society. Earlier he had also successfully prosecuted a bankruptcy case in favour of former Ukambani politician Paul Ngei.

A workaholic who rose from a poor background to become a multi-millionaire, Mr Kilonzo was among Kenya’s very few senior counsel whose legal opinion prominent people relied on.

When he moved to the ministry of Justice, Mr Kilonzo successfully midwifed the making of a new Constitution breaking the jinxed decades-long search for a new constitutional dispensation.

A month ago, he was part of a team of lawyers assembled by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga in an election petition case against President Kenyatta.