At 90, Veteran Lawyer John Khaminwa Still Works Hard and Dances

John Khaminwa has pulled off something most people can only imagine.

He turned 90, kept up a demanding law practice, and still had the energy to dance at his own birthday party.

The Kenyan lawyer marked the milestone on September 10, capping five decades of practicing law on his own terms.

Videos from his Lavington office show him in his signature light-colored hat, moving across the tiled floor to a live keyboard as colleagues sang along.

The song was “Mwana wa Mberi,” a Luhya folk tune that turned a legal office into a family gathering.

Educated for a Fight

Khaminwa’s path to the courtroom ran through some of East Africa’s best schools.

He studied at Masiyenze Primary School and Musingu Intermediate School near his home in Kakamega, then went on to Alliance High School in Kikuyu.

From there, he studied at Makerere University in Uganda before completing his bachelor’s degree in law at the University of Dar es Salaam.

He later added an external law degree from the University of London and a master’s degree in international law from New York University.

A Career Built on Cases Others Avoided

Khaminwa started practicing law in 1973 and built a reputation for taking cases that scared off other lawyers.

During the one-party era, he represented opposition figures including Raila Odinga, Kenneth Matiba and George Anyona as they pushed for multiparty democracy.

Government agents arrested him at his Karen home on June 4, 1982, after he represented dissidents the Moi administration wanted silenced.

He spent time in detention without trial between 1982 and 1983, and again briefly in 1990 around the Saba Saba pro-democracy rally.

The International Commission of Jurists documented his arrest and described him as a lawyer willing to take cases no one else would touch.

The Case That Made Him a Household Name

By the mid-1980s, Khaminwa had already defended opposition politicians, but a burial dispute turned him into a household name.

When lawyer S.M. Otieno died in 1986, his widow, Wambui Otieno, wanted him buried on their family farm in Kajiado.

His Umira Kager clan in Siaya wanted him buried on Luo soil, arguing that custom required it.

Otieno was Luo and his widow was Kikuyu, and the dispute pulled Kenya’s two largest ethnic communities into a five-month legal fight that played out in newspapers every day.

Khaminwa represented Wambui Otieno, arguing that a modern, educated widow should be able to bury her husband where he chose to live.

The High Court ruled for the clan under Luo customary law in February 1987, and an appeal later upheld that decision.

Khaminwa lost the case, but the daily coverage made him one of the most recognized lawyers in the country, well beyond legal circles.

From Treason Trials to the Supreme Court

Khaminwa’s caseload only grew heavier after that.

He defended Rumba Kinuthia in a high-profile treason trial during the 1980s, when such cases carried the death penalty.

More recently, he appeared before the Supreme Court for the Kenya Human Rights Commission and Kituo cha Sheria in the legal fight against the Building Bridges Initiative.

Ninety Years, Still in the Room

Khaminwa lost his wife, Joyce, in 2014, along with his eldest son, Albert, in the years since.

In a birthday letter, he wrote that he still thinks of his late father, who taught him to read at their family home in Masiyenze, a Quaker village in Kakamega.

“Today is my Happy Birthday. I am now 90 years old,” Khaminwa said in his birthday message.

Senior Counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi, who shared the celebration video, wrote a short tribute.

“Happy 90th Birthday. 53 years of exemplary law practice,” Abdullahi said.

A Reminder of What the Fight Cost, and What It Built

Kenya’s constitutional order did not arrive on its own.

Lawyers like Khaminwa spent years defending clients when doing so meant risking their own freedom.

His birthday video spread quickly because it showed something Kenyans rarely see from their legal elders: unguarded joy after a lifetime of guarded battles.

At 90, still practicing, Khaminwa remains proof that Kenya’s fight for rights has living witnesses willing to talk about it.