From Cell to Classroom: Ex-Inmate Kilatya Nthenge Begins His University Journey
When Kilatya Nthenge walked out of Hindi GK Prison in Lamu County for the final time, he carried with him something most former inmates leave behind — a concrete plan for what came next.
Key points
- Kilatya Nthenge was sentenced to four years for stock theft in 2023 by Magistrate Eugene Pascal Nabwana at Mpeketoni Law Courts, Lamu.
- He had dropped out of school in Form Three before imprisonment; Magistrate Nabwana later visited Hindi Prison and urged him to study.
- Nthenge sat the 2025 KCSE exam while still serving his sentence, earning a mean grade of D through the Kenya Prison Service Education Programme.
- After release he travelled over 600 km to thank the magistrate, then enrolled at Africa Nazarene University.
It had not always looked that way. In 2023, Nthenge stood before Resident Magistrate Eugene Pascal Nabwana at the Mpeketoni Law Courts in Lamu and was handed a four-year sentence for stock theft. He had already dropped out of formal schooling in Form Three, and the road ahead seemed to offer little.
Yet the sentence became an unlikely catalyst. Magistrate Nabwana visited Hindi Prison during Nthenge's incarceration and urged him to channel his time productively. The young man listened. He enrolled in the Kenya Prison Service Education Programme, completing the secondary schooling he had abandoned years earlier, and sat the 2025 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination while still serving his sentence. It was a transformation that unfolded behind prison walls, unseen by the wider world.
Earning a mean grade of D (plain), Nthenge did not top any academic league table — but the result was enough to open the door to higher education. More significantly, it was proof that the years he might have written off had instead been spent building something.
After his release, he did something that surprised even those who knew him. Rather than quietly rebuilding his life and moving on, he travelled more than 600 kilometres to Wamunyu Law Courts in Machakos County, where Magistrate Nabwana had since been transferred, to thank the man who had sentenced him in person. He was not seeking legal relief or favours. He simply wanted the magistrate to know that the punishment handed down in a Lamu courtroom had, in a very real sense, rescued him.
“I took your advice seriously because I had dropped out of school in Form Three, so I registered and sat my KCSE exam in 2025,” Nthenge told the magistrate during their reunion, according to reports.
The meeting quickly moved from words to action. Magistrate Nabwana drove Nthenge to Africa Nazarene University, paid a portion of his first-semester tuition fees, and pledged to mobilise support from friends and well-wishers to sustain his studies. Nthenge is now enrolled in a Certificate in Business Management programme at the institution.
His story has resonated as a rare and concrete illustration of what rehabilitation can look like — not as a talking point, but as a lived reality. For Nthenge, the courtroom that once represented the lowest point of his life turned out, by a circuitous route, to be where a new one began.
Sources: Nation.Africa.