Willis Otieno: The lawyer, the combatant and the King of ruthless comebacks

Willis was first introduced to the Kenyan psyche after the disputed 2022 elections, as part of the panoply of Azimio lawyers as he dazzled the Supreme Court with his sweaty panache, flowery delivery, intriguing mastery of the law and vicious onslaught on the opposing party.

From the moment he stepped on the stage, he made it clear that he was a man on a mission - and a man not to be toyed with, not especially on a playground where he had become superbly adept at dribbling on.

Bringing along a bagful of tricks and techniques of persuasion, and a sparkly personality to boot, Willis left the nation entranced with his legal effervescence; with a sweaty brow and a pompous demeanour, he left the courtroom enthralled - and certainty edified.

With unmatched eloquence and witticism, Willis is the legal wolf who had definitely kissed the blarney stone, and a man not ashamed to pepper his delivery with as much stunning finesse as possible, ultimately shutting the room down with his stupendous submissions. 

As other lawyers babbled on, dragging everyone along with their incomprehensible blather, Willis made it his business to take the nation to Law School, and do it only like a teacher would - by employing several classic pieces of public presentation.

And then, within all the drama and legal flair, he rang out the popular nursery rhyme 'Piki Piki Ponki', leaving the Supreme Court in utter shambles as his moment of stone-cold humour became an instant classic; a textbook study on how to go viral.

"What Chebukati did is what my niece, Mimi, calls ‘Pinky pinky ponky, Paka mielo disko! (the cat is dancing at a disco),” he said to a roaring court.

Perhaps the only person not amused was Justice Smokin Wanjala who quickly interjected, snapping: "I gave you brotherly guidance. Be careful! That language seems to be alien to this court!"

Three years after his courtroom antics caught the nation's attention, Willis Otieno has continued to eviscerate online detractors as he picks them out one by one, shreds them to pieces, takes them to school, disembowels them and leaves them in a messy pile of stinking shame and eternal regret.

There is not a more bloodthirsty combatant on X as Willis Otieno - like a famished beast, he lurks in the shadows, awaiting that luckless charlatan who dares spit out their senseless viewpoints, and then he pounces, ready for blood and torn flesh.

The latest victim of Otieno's woeful X attacks is Sylvia Kangara, who describes herself as an 'Advisor and Member of the President's Council of Economic Advisors'. After sharing a tactless take on a few national matters, and priding herself as a legal titan, Otieno quickly came calling and the aftermath was, to say the least, dreadful.

At first, he slapped her with this gem: "I hope the sunset has given you time to reflect because the shadows are always honest when the spotlight fades. You spoke not as a jurist, but as a brand ambassador for detached privilege, parading academic feathers while real people bled in the streets. Your words weren’t wisdom. They were cover fire for cowardice."

He added, "You quote law, but only when it’s convenient. You posture as principled, but only when power permits it. Top jurist? No. You’re a curator of comfort, stupidity, polished, praised, and profoundly out of touch."

As the exchanges gathered steam, Kangara appeared to have quickly marshalled a tiny team of contemporaries in her corner, as they all now banded together to hit back at the indefatigable Willis. Still, he pummeled them all, one after the miserable other.

Former Mandera East MP Abdikadir Mohammed, also a lawyer, thought it wise to snap back at Willis. He wrote, "Shida yaa hii medium every dismal dunderhead can throw words around...Dr. @SylviaKangara is too accomplished and way above any criticism from lowlife skunks of your ilk...bure kabisa!"

Quickly, a blazing Otieno roared back, writing, "You little Twitter rodent, crawling out of your intellectual sewer to bark nonsense like a loyal mongrel hoping for scraps of validation. This is not a shrine for worshipping academic titles, it’s a public square!"

"You reek of mental poverty - a dried sponge soaked in secondhand opinions and bootlicker syndrome. Your entire identity revolves around throwing yourself at people with titles hoping their shine will reflect on your dull, useless self!"

Not yet done with the lethal ambush, Willis added, "You call others “lowlife skunks” yet you're the one crawling on digital fours, sniffing for attention. Useless clout chaser. If cowardice and sycophancy had a child, it would tweet exactly like you!"

And when Mohammed attempted a comeback, tweeting out a desperate two-lines in a feeble attempt to also land a punch, things got even menacingly ugly.

Willis punched back, writing, "Your thinking? Shallow. Predictable. Embarrassingly outdated. You’d get more nuance arguing with a vending machine. You recycle 1990s logic with the flair of a man who genuinely believes verbosity is a substitute for intellect."

He went on, "You’ve mistaken restraint for weakness a catastrophic miscalculation. When I come for you, it will not be in haste, but with a methodical dissection of your ego, your lies, and your little illusions of relevance!"

As it all unfolded, in that idiosyncratic Willis Otieno style, Kenyans followed with shameless glee and malicious eagerness, egging the lawyer on and quoting pieces of some of his brutal paragraphs with fire emojis and anticipations of more violence.

"I don't have much to say. Mine is to echo what the Senior Lawyer has said. Cheers to more vayolence! Kanyaga kabisa bado kanapumua!" one X user wrote.

Willis Otieno, the lawyer, the Safina Party Deputy Leader, the linguist and the legal brute does not seem to be shying away from a fight any time soon - in fact, he has promised to take down more quacks and expose their vanity, empty rhetoric and idle ramblings - one tweet, one vocabulary and one subtle insult at a time.

He vowed: "I have observed, with studied patience, the rise of hollow men ; those who adorn themselves with academic garlands, yet recoil at the rigor that scholarship demands."

"But enough. I have come to unmask them. To tear the velvet from their pretense, to hold up a mirror not just to their fraudulence, but to the ecosystem that enables it. Because I do not speak for clout. I speak for the sanctity of thought."