Mutula Kilonzo Jr: Stepping out of my father's shadow

Mutula Kilonzo Jr was not known to many before throwing his hat into the ring to succeed his father as Makueni senator in July 2013.

This followed the death of Mutula Kilonzo under controversial circumstances that year and the barring of his younger sister, Kethi, by the courts to vie.

He garnered 163, 323 votes, beating veteran politicians Philip Kaloki (9,762) and Harun Mwau (6,431).

In an interview with the Star at Kilonzo and Co Advocates, where he is a managing partner, the second-term senator admits as much, saying the limelight came when he was elected to the Senate. 

This is despite him having participated in huge cases that have greatly influenced Kenya’s judicial jurisprudence.

“It was very difficult to notice me when my father was around and for a good reason. We lived in his shadow and we would only be seen in his absence. But nobody remembers that I was in the Goldenberg case with him, nobody remembers me questioning Eric Kotut [the fourth Central Bank Governor who served between 1988 and 1993] in that trial over his allegations against the late retired President Daniel Moi,” Kilonzo Jr says.

“Nobody remembers I represented both retired President Moi and his son Gideon in that trial when my father was busy with the Waki trial that was moving simultaneously at the time; nobody remembers that I cobbled up a legal team comprising of the current Solicitor General Ken Ogeto, the late Evans Monari, myself and other lawyers, six or seven of us, to defend the 17 Kanu MPs who won their seats during the  Narc-rainbow debacle. 

“Nobody remembers that I represented Deputy President William Ruto against a petition by Reuben Chesire. I was in the lead legal team that strictly speaking ended up defending the current President then leading the Kanu team; nobody remembers that I represented Gideon Moi at the time being accused of the Ngong land case with Sammy Mwaita.

"Nobody remembers that I did so many petitions, matters that are in law books to date. Nobody remembers that I appeared before a bench of nine Court of Appeal judges that attempted to overturn the famous ruling of Kibaki vs Moi in the petition by Ali Chiaba Abu Mohamed who ended up being  MP and Senator.

When I show up on Monday, he [father] says I have failed the interview as I am not in a jacket. He lends me one and employs me as his messenger and cleaner and later promoted me to a clerk

Kiolonzo Jr, who trained as a lawyer at India's Nagpur University, also reveals that when his sister Kethi dazzled Kenyans in the 2013 presidential election petition, she had pleaded with him, as her senior, to act with her.

"I said 'no, it is your time to shine'. And she did. Kethi was shining like a bright star in the middle of the night.”

Kilonzo Jr, whose father was a top advocate, says he always wanted to be a lawyer and had his dad to look up to and to train him.

“I always wanted to study law since my primary and secondary level studies. Not the same for Kethi. She wanted to be a doctor but she missed it by one mark. So I dragged her to the Law faculty at the University of Nairobi. That was a coincidence. Nothing was planned. I never stepped into this office until I studied law. That was the condition and qualification to step into Kilonzo and Co Advocates,” he narrates.

“When I was 18, my father, seated on this seat, told me he wanted to train me so that I would sit on it. I sit on it proudly…

"In May 1995, when I came back home from school in India, my father picked me up at the airport on a Friday and told me he expects me at work on Monday. When I show up on Monday, he says I have failed the interview as I am not in a jacket. He lends me one and employs me as his messenger and cleaner and later promoted me to a clerk.

“I later became a researcher either in my fourth year or towards the year I was completing. Even the people we work with here, the clerks, were my bosses,” he recalls.

In the larger family [first and second wife] it was only he and Kethi who studied and practice law.  

Asked whether it was a struggle getting away from his father’s shadow, Kilonzo Jr says they needed to establish themselves.

He says he has had more than two instances where a judge or a client asked him whether I sought the legal opinion of his father.

“At one time, Justice [Nicholas] Ombija made that comment when my father was in court with us. It was not just living in his shadow. My father was a legal guru. Practising under him and with him was a big challenge but we managed to overcome it because some of the cases I mention, I did them when my father was alive. I did the petition by Jayne Kihara against John Mututho that led to so many amendments to the Elections Act when my father was alive,” he says.

“I did the case of Muthembwa Vs Muthembwa that has led to the new Matrimonial Property Act in 2002 when my father was alive. So, although you cannot discount that my father was a big shadow over Kethi and myself, we nevertheless attempted at whatever level to cut our teeth and our niche in the legal profession."

This, he notes, is what enabled them, with Kethi, to continue running the law firm after Kilonzo Snr retired as a partner when he was nominated to Parliament in 2003.

He also discloses that unknown to many, including the political players who propagated Kethi’s candidacy, he was the one who used to manage his father’s backend in his political life—2007 and 2013.

He was, however, not interested in joining politics until Kethi was barred from vying.

Kethi was not a registered voter.

While you would expect that Kilonzo Jr attended expensive schools, that was not the case.

“I went to what you might call ordinary public schools. Jamhuri Primary School, and Nairobi secondary where I was a day scholar and went to study law in India from 1994 to 99,” he says.

It never really hit him that he was the son of a big-shot lawyer until he was in secondary school and at university.

“I didn’t live in a bubble as everyone thinks I did. I used matatus and buses to school every morning and evening,” he says.

The father of two is gunning for Makueni governor in August.