Folks, I’ve been granted power to read and write

I graduated with honours last week. Please, take your seats. And for Christ’s sake stop clapping.

I took a picture of myself in a gown and posted it online. Three hours later, there were over 150 likes and numerous comments.

I felt like a socialite. Perhaps I am. My campus is known to churn out socialites every year.

First came the queen of twerk, Maura Malanga. Then came the lady with a killer bumper, Corazon Kwamboka.

Perhaps those figures are a sign that the mantle has been passed on to me. That night I went back to my bachelor’s pad.

Not graduating

My housemate, who was also a classmate, had not gotten his gown, and so to give him a feel of what wearing a gown is like, I lent him mine.

At that moment, a neighbour knocked and found him wearing my gown and they started talking. “Eish bwana, you look nice, when do we come for nyam chom?” “Tomorrow,” he answered.

“Na huyo mwingine? Hakuwa anaenda shule?” They laughed. I giggled. The neighbour looked at me and wondered why I was not graduating.

Act of survival

I could imagine what was going through his head; that maybe I was the daft one with pending resits to take care of, or I ate my school fees and now my degree certificate was being held ransom, or maybe I was merely uneducated.

I could not blame him. My housemate is the one who wears suits every morning to work, while I am the one who walks out to buy breakfast at noon.

Graduating from the UoN School of Law is an act of survival. It is a jungle inside those walls.

It is easy to get over 150 likes, and comments of people saying congratulations.

The ones that make me laugh are those people saying that you are finally their go-to lawyer, and yet they have not paid you any retainer.

These ones are followed closely by people asking you to represent them in court — clearly the difference between a lawyer and an advocate is a rumour whistling in the wind.

 I accept all these pats on the back with grace.

However, I wish these guys knew the kinds of things I had to do in order to get that degree.

UoN School of Law is one of those campuses where the lecturer comes and tells you in your first class that nobody will receive an A, the lucky ones will get a B, and less than a quarter of the class will manage C and D. The rest will fail.

Dubious methods

We took that as a challenge. We applied dubious methods in order to have the acronym LL.B before our names.

But never did we let those five letters of the alphabet determine our fate. To hell with grades, God gives us what we are worth.

I raise this invisible glass to you, class of 2014. We made it omera. We made it. Gini wasekao!