He first gained attention from the public when he represented a fiery MP who was charged with trying to topple Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s administration on April 8, 1971.
After one day of proceedings, Yatta MP Gideon Mutiso entered a guilty plea before acting senior resident magistrate SK Sachdeva under the representation of Samuel Mutua Kivuitu, a dashing attorney and MP for Parklands (now Westlands).
Along with 13 other people, including Chief Justice Kitili Mwendwa, the Chief of Defence Staff, and Major General JM Ndolo, Mutiso was accused of plotting the coup in which Uhuru Kenyatta’s father was to be executed by hanging him for corruption and political assassinations. The 12 goat-eating sessions were held in preparation for the coup.

Sedition, a death offense, was the allegation brought against the conspirators, not treason. As “the pivot around which the entire plan to destroy the Kenya government revolved,” Mutiso was referred to by Deputy Public Prosecutor James Karugu (later Attorney-General).
When Mutiso was sentenced to nine years in prison after pleading with the president, “I have come to you Mzee as your lost son,” Mwendwa and Ndolo were sacked from their positions.
After independence, Kivuitu—a graduate of Machakos Boys, Makerere University, and the University of Dar-es-Salaam—became one of only two non-Kikuyu MPs in Nairobi. He also served as a resident magistrate and as State counsel. The other was Yunis Ali, the only Nubian lawmaker to date and Lang’ata’s MP.

In the contentious 1974 elections, in which three-quarters of MPs lost their seats, Kivuitu was defeated by Wachira Waweru by five votes.
He withdrew to his struggling private practice and fish and chips shop in the city after losing again in the 1983 and 1988 mlolongo elections.
His appointment as deputy head of the disbanded Electoral Commission led by Zacchaeus Chesoni for the 1992 General Election was made possible by retiring President Daniel arap Moi, who had been a man of relative obscurity.
When retiring President Mwai Kibaki reappointed him, Kivuitu took over from Chesoni as president of the Commission that presided over the 1997 elections, the 2005 Constitutional Referendum, and the infamous 2007 General Election disaster.

The loss of that election was attributed to Kivuitu’s carefree demeanor and rash remarks, which included admitting, “I do not know who won the elections,” even after naming Kibaki the victor over rival Raila Odinga.
This occurred during the height of political unrest, setting off the subsequent post-election violence that claimed the lives of 1,300 Kenyans and forced over 600,000 more to flee their homes.

How did he die?

“It was an embarrassing conclusion to a public career for the unrepentant but divorced father of seven, who passed away from throat cancer on February 25, 2013, at the age of 74, in Nairobi’s MP Shah hospital.”