Willis Otieno is well known as the lawyer who created a light moment in the Supreme Court during the trial for the 2022 presidential election by belting out nursery rhymes like choosy pinky ponky as part of his contribution.
Willis, speaking on behalf of one of the petitioners, Khelef Khalifa, claimed that the country’s electoral process had been reduced to child’s play.
“We’ve reduced our elections to my cousin’s childhood games of picky pinky ponky, paka mielo disco,” he said, but what promptly directed by the judges to restrain from making such remarks.
Willis’ presentation made him popular, but many people are unaware that he played an important role in ODM leader Raila Odinga’s 2017 presidential election campaign and prepared the latter’s contentious oath as People’s President in January 2018.
During The Engage show, Willis discussed how he came to write the oath, stating that the path began in 2017 when one of his acquaintances introduced him to politician and businessman Jimi Wanjigi, who then introduced him to Raila.
According to Willis, Odinga’s enthusiasm for politics drove him to hire him as his campaign manager for the 2017 presidential election.
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As Odinga’s campaign manager, Willis claimed that his job was to guarantee that his boss took the oath of office as president.
“As a campaign manager what is the outcome of that process, my candidate must take the oath of office as president
“So Jimi asked if I could write an oath of office for the president after the election, so I wrote the oath that was administered on 30 January 2018. I wrote and Miguna administered it and gave it back to me,” he said.
Following the contentious oath, Raila met with former President Uhuru Kenyatta and decided to collaborate in what became known as the ‘Handshake’ agreement.
Willis says that after the handshake, he retreated and worked more closely with Wanjigi, who designated him his running mate in the 2022 presidential race.
The two, however, were barred from running in the 2022 presidential election due to allegations that they did not meet all of the electoral standards.
Following this, Willis took a case and appeared before the 2022 presidential election petition, when he famously said ‘picky pinky ponky, paka mielo disco’.
