Meet Willis Otieno: Lawyer who Wrote Raila’s Controversial People President Oath

Willis Otieno is widely known as the lawyer who created a light moment at the Supreme Court during the hearing of the 2022 presidential election when he belted out nursery rhymes of picky pinky ponky as part of his submissions. 

Appearing for Khelef Khalifa, one of the petitioners, Willis argued that the election process in the country 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.

The presentation made him popular, but what many probably don't know is that Willis played a key role in ODM leader Raila Odinga's 2017 presidential election campaign and drafted the latter's controversial oath as People's president in January 2018.

Speaking during The Engage show, Willis opened up on how he got to write the oath, noting that the journey began in 2017 when one of his acquaintances introduced him to politician and businessman Jimi Wanjigi, who later introduced him to Raila.

File image of Willis Otieno. [Photo: Courtesy]

According to Willis, Odinga was thrilled by his passion for elections which made him his 2017 presidential election campaign manager.

As Odinga's campaign manager, Willis argued that his work was to ensure 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 controversial oath, Raila engaged in talks with former President Uhuru Kenyatta and agreed to work together in what was popularly referred to as 'Handshake'. 

Willis notes that following the handshake, he retreated and worked more with Wanjigi who named him his running-mate in the 2022 presidential election.

The two were, however, blocked from contesting in the 2022 presidential election over claims that they did not meet all the electoral requirements.

It was after this that Willis took a case and appeared at the 2022 presidential election petition where he made the now famous 'picky pinky ponky, paka mielo disco' phrase.