Sylvanus Melea Otieno

Sylvanus Melea Otieno was born in 1931 in Nyalgunga, Alego, Siaya. Educated in law in Bombay, India, he was admitted to the Kenyan Bar in 1961, establishing himself as one of East Africa's most brilliant and flamboyant criminal defense lawyers.

Following his sudden death from a heart attack on December 20, 1986, his widow, Virginia Wambui Otieno (a Kikuyu aristocrat and feminist), wished to bury him at their private farm in Upper Matasia. Otieno's Luo clan, Umira Kager, filed suit demanding customary burial at his ancestral home in Nyalgunga. The five-month legal battle went to the Court of Appeal, creating a landmark precedent in African jurisprudence on the supremacy of indigenous customary law over common law.