Human rights activist Okiya Omtatah , a renowned lawyer not by profession is a trained mechanical engineer.

The Kenya's most celebrated public defender explains why he opted to drop his ambition of working as an engineer after successful completion of his training at Kenya Polytechnic, currently, The Technical University of Kenya.

"We were targeting the Nyayo Car but when it went up in smoke, we were left with all this knowledge that we could not use. You could only go and become a mechanic… you could not do the designs and other things that we were trained on, so I felt it was not worth it,” he said in a past interview with a local daily.

As a student at Kenya Polytechnic, Omtatahhad aspirations of making an improved version of  the Kenyan made, Nyayo Car, to a point that the country would have an affordable and functional car that was made in Kenya.

Nyayo car was a project by the Kenyan government  to plan and manufacture local cars. 

The project was initiated in 1986 when the former president Daniel Moi asked the University of Nairobi students to develop the vehicles.

He felt that he could not fully employ the skills that  learned as the vehicle assembler pushing him to make another shift to explore other fields of his choice.

A man who has risked his life and ribs for the sake of Kenyans has also been to a seminary, where he studied philosophy and was well on his way to being a priest but health issues derailed his dreams.

At this point, he started began utilizing his other talents to become an accomplished author and playwrighter.

In May, this year, Omtatah filed a case seeking to have persons with integrity issues blocked from vying in the 2022 General Elections.

He said that he is concerned that many people adversely mentioned in thefts of public funds want to vie for political seats.

He  maintained that the best way to ensure good governance, including stopping the  rampant theft of public funds and the general lack of  transparency and accountability in the public sector is to ensure that only people with integrity are elected into State offices at both the county and national levels of government.

Omtatah is among  the eight cleared candidates by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to succeed Senator Amos Wako . The activist will be vying on the National Reconstruction Alliance.

His quest for a just society has seen him honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award from the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders Kenya and the Working Group on Human Defenders.