Kenya Basketball Federation chairman Paul Otula on November 23, 2019.
Paul Agali Otula, the towering and long-serving school principal who passed on Thursday in Nairobi, leaves a rich legacy in education and sports.
Tall, huge and sometimes deceptively intimidating, Otula was a go-getter and a passionate teacher and coach.
Former Maseno school Principal Paul Otula.
He combined academic achievement with sports excellence. For nearly three decades, Otula led top national schools and demonstrated the rare quality of teaching and training students in basketball, his passion, and for which he also served the country in senior positions.
Otula’s leadership talent was manifest early. After graduating from Kenyatta University with a bachelor's degree in education in the late 1980s, Otula taught briefly at Mangu and soon rose to become the deputy and thereafter principal.
However, his tenure at Mangu was cut short because of a strong disagreement with some board members who had wanted to influence procurement contracts.
Using their political networks, the board members schemed for his transfer and he was shoved to Jamhuri High School in Nairobi.
However, this caused a public uproar and to calm the situation and demonstrate fairness, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) decided to post Otula to Maseno School, a national institution in his home province.
It is at Maseno, where Otula served for nearly two decades, that he demonstrated his mettle.
Maseno, one of the country's oldest high schools, had gone down in academics and co-curricular activities.
And this presented a perfect challenge. Otula hit the road running and within two years, he had turned the fortunes.
Maseno sprung back to top the charts— leading in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) for successive years.
Former Maseno school principal Paul Otula and students sing in the school chapel during prayers after receiving their KCSE results which place Masenp fifth nationally on March, 3, 2014.
Not only did the school excel in national exams but also in sports. He coached basketball and his students shone in the nationals and regional sports tournaments.
Besides his favourite basketball, the school also topped in rugby and football, winning national and East African regional championships titles, making the institution a sports powerhouse.
And these catapulted him to the national sports scene, where he was elected chairman of the Kenya Basketball Federation in 2008, a position he held until his untimely demise.
In between, Otula was involved in sports management at various levels, serving as an executive member of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK). He was involved in youth sports development and participated in various sporting activities in the region.
Otula left Maseno School in 2017 and joined Sunshine High School, where he worked until 2021. In 2022, he tried his hands in elective politics in Karachuonyo Constituency, Homa Bay County, but he did not go beyond party primaries.
A holder of master’s degree in business administration from Liverpool University, UK, Otula wrote scholarly papers on school administration.
In 2017, he published a book, Effective Leadership, that offers practical guidance on leadership in the education sector.
Otula was a remarkable school manager, a passionate sports administrator and effective community mobiliser.
His towering height, academic excellence and infectious passion for sports will live for generations. Go well, man of long shadow.
