You could say many things have made Allan Munyao Mukuki, 34, successful. Still, perhaps only three—his holy trifecta—are enough: “The hard work and sacrifice of my father, the prayers of my mother, and the mentorship I have had from key people since I was a teenager when I decided to be a lawyer.”
Those three things catapulted him from rookie lawyer to established counsel, culminating with a highlight reel that features coming up with a refugee management policy for Igad (Intergovernmental Authority on Development) at just 31.
Before that, he set up Strathmore Moot Court, which, on pictorial evidence on his desk, ended up scooping several awards and being the first African team to get to the final of the ICC Competition in July 2024.
Accolades escape his mouth as if they singe his throat: contributor to the High Court Registry Manual for Kenya, training programmes at Strathmore University, the European Research Council Project on Customary International Law, the 2021-2024 and 2024-2029 Strategic Plans for the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, Kenya, and the Nairobi Refugee Integration and Community Building Strategy 2024-2027.
"Give grace for you have been given grace."
So what’s behind his ambition? “I saw my father toil daily to ensure my sister and I never struggled. He would leave in a suit to go work as a doctor, and I got that from him. I do what I do to the best of my ability. We tend to run away from things that expose us and force us to make a change. The ability to grow and grow others. That is what drives me—I want to be the best sweeper I could be so that I can let others come and clean where I could not finish.”
He is a lawyer’s lawyer, dipping his hand in everything: “I am a data protection lawyer, an international lawyer, a refugee lawyer, and a lecturer — simply a multifaceted legal professional who can fit in at any place and still mentor young people just as I was.”
Mentorship rears its head several times because he is a product of others—reveling in the Ubuntu philosophy aphorism “Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu,” which translates to “a person is a person because of or through others.”
He pays homage to Ardline Kaari Muchiri-Muciimi (Managing Partner, A.K. Muchiri & Co Advocates) and Muciimi Mbaka (legal adviser to the Chief Justice) who took him in at 15 and showed him how to be a lawyer, before the founding dean of Strathmore School, Prof Luis G. Franceschi, courted him and wooed him as a graduate assistant, rising to his current role.
When he gets to where he is going, where will he be? “I thought I would be a diplomat but I want to be just a hummingbird, all I can do is make the changes I can with what I have. I want to impact my community, country, and continent. I want to be the go-to person for international and refugee law, especially in this region.”
With a Master’s of Law from the University of Groningen, Netherlands, and pursuing his PhD in law from Stellenbosch University, South Africa, his reputation no longer rests on the intoxicating elixir of novelty, but rather, on consistent practice. The son of teachers remains a student of life, and he offers a lesson that stands the test of time: “Give grace for you have been given grace.”
-Eddy Ashioya