When American actress Joan Collins said “age is just a number. It is totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine”, she might as well have had Benjamin Wamugunda Geteria in mind.
In 2011, aged 66, Mr Geteria enrolled for a bachelor of laws degree at the University of Nairobi (UoN), graduating four years later at 70.
On Monday, he was finally admitted to the roll of advocates upon successfully completing his pupillage and a diploma in law from the Kenya School of Law (KSL).The septuagenarian, who is turning 77 in August, is already six years past the retirement age for judges in Kenya. But he is undeterred.
“I am aware I cannot be a judge in the country but I want to be useful. I am more on the people law rather than material law and my specialty will be in pro-poor litigation serving the underdogs as I am not here to amass wealth,” Mr Geteria told the Nation.
Growing up, Mr Geteria wanted to be a medical doctor but, when he joined Alliance High School that did not happen as he found himself dealing with trees for 28 years.
“In 2011, however, I felt challenged. I felt awkward having all these forestry degrees but I was jobless. I said there must be something I can do,” he says.
The Forestry Society of Kenya chairperson says that he then decided to join the UoN to finally study law, sharing classes with students as young as his grandchildren before graduating in 2015.
He would then proceed to the Kenya School of Law in 2016 and it was not smooth sailing as he had to resit the exam twice, graduating in 2017.
The second-born in a family of 13 recalls some days when he would want to fail so as to stop his studies but he would succeed and find himself going on.
Some of the challenges he encountered involved getting to grips with technological advances requiring reading on the phone, getting reading materials from the internet and using iPads but the support he received kept him going.
“There was a time I was like, ‘Why the bother at my age?’, but I would always go on for the sake of my granddaughter who had taken a keen interest in my studies. I completed [the exams] last year after two attempts,” he says with a smile on his face.
The Runyenjes-born grandfather says he does not want to be like other civil servants who resort to drinking themselves silly after retirement or dying of idleness. He wants to have something useful to do for the society in his old age.
He regrets that, unless retirees had amassed wealth or had set up businesses, they would become useless in old age and he wanted to be different.
“A lot of people tend to go drinking in their retirement or just idling and complaining about how hard life is but [practising] law has given me a new lease of life,” says Mr Geteria.
Former Forestry Society of Kenya Chairman Benjamin Geteria Wamugunda during the interview at his home in Lang’ata, Nairobi, on May 8, 2022.
Photo credit: Dennis Onsongo | Nation Media Group
In fact, he says, he is already looking forward to the future and has set up an office in Gikomba Market ready to dip into his new world as an advocate upon receiving a practising licence from the Law Society of Kenya.
“I am happy to have come this far. I am raring to go as I want to be useful to society until the last breath of my life,” he says, adding that he wants to spend the few remaining years of his life helping those in need. But why would a grandfather with 28 years of public service under his belt subject himself to the pressures of a law career in his old age?
Mr Geteria, who is also an author, explains that his desire to right the wrongs in the society, especially for the poor, is enough motivation to become a “pro-people advocate”.
He argues that poverty, rather than having criminal minds, drives most people to commit crimes. However, the poor always end up behind bars while other criminals walking around in nice suits and driving fancy cars go scot-free because they have the wherewithal to tilt the scales of justice in their favour.
“The people who need advocates are the ones who cannot afford them. I am not Jesus Christ but I feel a conviction that I want to right the wrongs going on in the society, especially against the poor,” he said.
He said his desire to study law had been with him since 1981 because he wanted to right injustices in the world.
Mr Geteria narrated how he admired lawyers, saying, his father Rowland Njeru Geteria, too, was fond of legal practitioners.
He remembers well a young lawyer, identified as Ojiambo, capturing his attention in 1981 when he argued a case in a Kitale court before the late Justice Samuel Oguk, who was a resident magistrate.
From the encounter, he began flirting with the idea of becoming a lawyer and started reading books on the law and associating with lawyers.
“I remember listening to people like James Orengo, who was in Form One when I was in Form Six at Alliance High, and Pheroze Nowrojee articulating legal matters, slowly gravitating me towards the profession,” he said.
However, the injustices and bad governance that characterised former President Daniel Moi’s regime left him jobless in 1993. He lost his forestry job as the regime became hostile to civil servants who tried to excel.
He would continue getting contracts with the Kenya Forestry Service until 2015, when he left as the chairperson of the Forestry Conservancy of Nairobi.
In between, he contested the Runyenjes parliamentary seat in 1997 on a Democratic Party ticket but lost because of what he said was foul play.
The injustices, he says, reminded him of his father’s experiences in 1952, when he was arrested by colonial officials and tied up with ropes during the Mau Mau agitation and taken to Kapenguria along with the late Jomo Kenyatta and 77 others.
“So in a way I felt propelled to right the wrongs that were happening. At the time, there was a lot of agitation happening about injustices and bad governance. And, coincidentally, it was lawyers shouting the loudest at the time,” he said.
