Forget the polite bar debates. Lawyer Willis Otieno has dropped a bombshell: the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) presidential election is a naked power grab targeting the Bar itself – Kenya’s final independent bulwark against executive excess.
“Power fears independent lawyers. Power fears fearless litigation,” Otieno thundered in his viral warning. “So they manufacture ego candidates: polished puppets, state-friendly faces dressed as reformers but programmed to kneel.”
As Senior Counsel Charles Kanjama, Vice President Mwaura Kabata, and Peter Wanyama slug it out ahead of the February 19 vote, Otieno insists the public cannot stay on the sidelines. The LSK isn’t a lawyers-only club; it’s the profession that hauls the state to court, defends rights, and roars when others whisper.
A captured Bar changes everything:
– Soft murmurs replace outrage over rights abuses.
– Eyes avert during abductions and disappearances.
– Negotiation supplants litigation.
– The watchdog becomes a lapdog.
“That is how institutions die – not by statute, but by silent surrender,” Otieno warned. “The LSK is not an annex of State House. It cannot be domesticated without stripping citizens naked before power.”
He demands voters grill every contender mercilessly:
Who has confronted the state when it stung?
Who has defended the Constitution without flinching?
Who will keep the Bar fierce and free – not tamed and toothless?
This isn’t about who grabs the gavel. It’s about whether Kenya’s legal profession stays a shield for the weak or morphs into another arm of the powerful.
Otieno’s closing shot is brutal: institutional capture feeds on apathy. Ignore this race, and the soul of constitutionalism slips away quietly.
Kenyans – advocates and citizens alike – stay razor-sharp. The Bar’s independence is everyone’s last line of defence. Lose it, and we all stand exposed.
