friday's nation newspaper magazine carried a feature about the rags to riches story of a leading kenyan advocate of the high court, mutula kilonzo snr. at 58 he has secured riches to last upto to the third and fourth generation. considered the devil's advocate for taking brief of former president daniel arap moi's legal matters, he is a man of means and influence.

the 1975 start-up lawyer who earned his first million shillings in six months is one of the six senior state counsels in today's kenya. i wonder why he abuses his secretaries whenever they distract his meetings, only his budding lawyer son, mutula kilonzo jnr can dare.

i once went for an interview and was asked when i expect to earn my first million. taken aback i tried circumventing the question by seeking clarification whether they meant million dollars or million shillings. then i needed them to clarify whether its a million for the employer or mine. then whether its cumulative over my working life or an on the spot cheque of one million. or a count of all the money that passes or has passed through my hands. honestly, at the time a million shillings was a pipe dream. do i look like i can handle a million bob? i would wonder. i would take the next flight to zanzibar and negotiate a return-to-work formula after its over.

no need to kill brain cells trying to imagine of a million shillings. from the salary package on offer i knew it would take me a lifetime to earn or two decades to cumulatively have a million pass through my account. in my mind i knew only self-employment or having deals on the side could guarantee that. but those ideas are best left unsaid in an interview. if i said this year or next year or in five years' time, i knew they will ask, how will you get it? if i say i am not sure, that will show my lack of ambition and poor planning. i ended up answering i would achieve that in the next two years. they asked me how? i told them by then i expect to be the ceo of the enterprise. the ceo moved in his seat.

like most first years in high school, mutula kilonzo was asked to report with a pair of shoes to form one. he diligently packed his shoes and reported to school barefoot. reminds me of those 'coffins' we used to carry to school, with all those compartments for shoes, section for hiding illegal edibles, clothes, soap, money etc. as in everything had to fit in especially for those of us who went to schools that had lots of bbs.

not bb for blue band margarine or big brothers but a pack of billy the bully. bbs made their lifes in boarding seclusion bearable by making form ones do the most outrageous stuff like singing lullabies, troupe dancing after evening prep sessions and answering all those crude questions about your female relations. or mounting a guard of honour for the bb's inspection complete with a yes-sir! salute pass-by and a head count. a head count entailed the bb placing his left palm on top of your head and firmly hitting it with a clenched right hand fist. woe unto you if you were taller than the bb.

if your 'coffin' survived the bbs routine inspection, then the box would eventually suffer the 'butterfly blow' of the petty thieves. since most were locked at the center, all a student thief would do is step at the center and use both hands to raise the edges of your box. when you get back to your room, your box would resemble a butterfly.

what happened to that catchy advert of school kids hinting to their teacher that b without bb is like a train without an engine? its no longer adorning our screens. they would act the hint by disconnecting a train merry-go-round (a sequence of kids) from the engine (the first kid in the sequence). b for bread, bb for blue band margarine. the teacher had just given them plain bread. then they would end, no b without bb! logically i think there cannot be bb without b, the converse is true. (hint: remove b from bb and realise you wont pronunce it as bb).

while walking in the city streets i came across a very beautiful sister (nun). now i understand why the first fruits should be to the creator. holding constant services with such could be the reason why archbishop milingo could not hold his horses.