Danston Omari. PHOTO | COURTESY

There is a flamboyant and abrasive man who has been hogging the national limelight with his aggressive style as an advocate.

Danston Omari is the man of the moment, with the Shakahola religious cult starvation deaths drawing even more attention to him.

Omari has become the darling of the media, appearing frequently on radio and TV talk shows and interviews from the scenes of events, and man, doesn’t he do a marvelous job.

When controversial Kilifi preacher Ezekiel Odero was arrested, he was there pronto to field media questions in defence of the cleric, providing the sound bites the stations needed.

He turned up with fellow criminal lawyer Cliff Ombeta, who has also made a name and a fortune, representing criminal suspects. Today, whenever there is a high-profile criminal case, the two will always turn up, and will most likely be in the driving seat, influencing media coverage of the events.

Interestingly, before he emerged as wealthy Pastor Ezekiel’s advocate in the case in which he has been linked with the activities of religious cult leader Paul Mackenzie, following the Shakahola horror of the discovery of more than 100 bodies buried in shallow graves in a remote Kilifi County village, Omari had in an interview being highly critical of maverick Kenyan clerics.

Suspected police raid

Before Shakahola, Omari was in the limelight, following the suspected police raid on former no-nonsense Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i’s home in the leafy suburb of Karen in Nairobi’s southwestern neighbourhood. He was out there in full voice, defending Dr Matiang’i’s rights, promising a tough battle. He was one of the reported 200 or so lawyers who spent a night at the former CS’s home.

Of course, the pressure on Dr Matiang’I that appeared to have been orchestrated from high up in the system would later ease. However, it is not certain whether the direction the matter took had anything to do with this tough advocate.

Dr Matiang’i appeared at a meeting in Nairobi with Education Cabinet Secretary Ezekiel Machogu ahead of President Ruto’s planned visit to Gusiiland. Both are prominent sons of the Gusii nation that was hosting President Ruto.

The nearly 60-year-old lawyer counts among his secondary school classmates former Super CS Matiang’i. He is married to Pamela, a PhD student at Catholic University, whose undergraduate university fees he paid. They have two sons.

In a highly publicised altercation on TV with the Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji, who had reportedly disparagingly referred to him as a busybody, Omar challenged him to produce his own credentials for the public to judge the two of them.

He dismissed the DPP as a man who has never won “even a case of chicken or banana thief”. It was a ferocious tirade on camera. “Can he reveal which university he went to?” he challenged Haji in remarks before TV cameras.

Omari, who was born on December 6, 1964, at Nyabite Village in Nyamira, is a former secondary school teacher, who enrolled for law studies at the University of Nairobi at the age of 40. He commuted daily from neighbouring Kiambu to attend. The former high school deputy principal started his law degree course in 2005.

Ferocious assault on books

He struggled in those early days in school, posting dismal marks and even repeating classes. He would later unleash a ferocious assault on books to excel and was admitted to the bar in November 2011. He also holds a Master of Law degree, making him one of the most learned advocates running their own practices in Nairobi.

He has had some high-profile clients, including President Ruto in a child support litigation against him when he was the DP. Others include former United Democratic Party chairman Johnson Muthama, whom he represented in his divorce case.

He also featured in the case of the late Dutch tycoon Tob Cohen as his family’s lawyer, and also for controversial private investigator Jane Mugo, who was charged with threatening to kill two people. The body of the Dutch tycoon was in September, 2019, found in a septic tank within his compound in Kitisuru, Nairobi.

Omari would clock more media footage in the divorce case of Marryanne Kitany, representing her against current Agriculture CS Mithika Linturi and also featured in the real estate scandal case against controversial preacher Bishop David Gakuyo over his Ekeza Sacco through which prospective homeowners lost millions of shillings.

He once spoke to an interviewer on why he changed his profession, saying: “I chose law because I felt I must have been born to be a lawyer…I wanted to do law from day one, but things did happen that made me unable to at first…”

He graduated with a Bachelor of Law degree in 2008 and a year later went to the Kenya School of Law for his diploma to prepare himself for practice. He also enrolled for a master’s degree.

His huge personal sacrifice, covering long distances daily to attend lessons, saw him achieve his ambition to become a leading lawyer.

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