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Saturday, March 31, 2012

Mutula: Once a teacher, always a teacher


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By BILLY MUIRURI and JULIUS SIGEI
Posted  Friday, March 30  2012 at  20:59
Mbooni MP Mr Mutula Kilonzo was minister for Justice up to Monday this week, when he was transferred to the Ministry of Education in a Cabiner reshuffle.
While many questioned the rationale of the transfer, the education ministry is, perhaps, a fitting docket for the prominent lawyer.
Mr Kilonzo happens to be a teacher who has taught very many prominent lawyers in the country.
One of his famous law students is Moses Wetang’ula, who was also affected by the Monday reshuffle.
Mr Wetang’ula, hitherto the minister for Foreign Affairs, was moved to the less illustrious Ministry of Trade.
Mr Kilonzo also taught the Foreign Affairs permanent secretary Thuita Mwangi.
In his former Ministry of Justice, Mr Kilonzo had taught assistant minister William Cheptumo.
His other famous students include Supreme Court Judge Njoki Ndung’u, Gladys Shollei, the Chief Registrar in the Judiciary, and Mr Kennedy Ogeto, one of the lawyers representing International Criminals Court suspect Francis Muthaura.
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Mr Kilonzo, who insists he was the first law student to be awarded a first class honours degree in East Africa, was in the same class as ICC Judge Joyce Aluoch at university.
He went to Machakos High School at the same time as Court of Appeal judges Philip Waki and Erastus Githinji.
He was also classmate of the current Tanzania Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda at the University of Dar es Salaam. Mr Kilonzo also wears the hat of a conservationist.
He runs an animal sanctuary on his 1,500 acre Kwa Kyelu Ranch in Mbooni, off the Nairobi-Mombasa highway.
In the sanctuary, Mr Kilonzo offers refuge to three lions that were rescued from the Maasai Mara game reserve by the Kenya Wildlife Service after their mother died in 2007.
Other wild animals hosted at the ranch are three buffaloes that were rescued from Magadi, Meru and Nakuru.
It is not cheap to feed the lions, he says. It costs him at least Sh2 million per year to deliver them fresh meat.
Mr Kilonzo says he started his conservation work two decades ago on his farm in Nakuru, where he rears ostriches. 
Over 1,200 of them are below six months old, having been hatched at the ranch, while the mature ones were rescued from human-wildlife conflict in Baringo.

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