A plate of chips was enough to date campus girls- Nyeri Senator Mutahi Kagwe

I joined the University of Nairobi in 1978 for a Bachelor of Commerce degree.

The university was less populated given they were the centres of high voltage research and learning.

I loved the Laws of Contracts unit which was taught by the current Chief Justice, Dr Willy Mutunga. You could not miss Mutunga’s lectures, he was good. Prof Ngothe Kariuki and Prof Waruingi also taught with passion.I nonetheless abhorred Quantitative Methods (QM).

Some of my former classmates who are still my great friends include Jeff Maindi and Bungoma Senator Moses Wetangula.

Our ‘boom’ was our lifeline. It was Sh27,000 for the entire three years in campus. The amount catered for books, food, clothes and partying. Outside class I was a member of the famous Free Traveling Theatre of UoN and I had the privilege to tour many corners of this nation.

We also drank beer liberally because government controlled beer prices in the whole country. The beer price tag at Serena read like that at Karumaindo. But matters changed with entry of free market and most of us (students) settled at Karumaindo because of the weight of our pockets. Michael Jackson was the pop star of the time his music and that of Maroon Commandos and Les Mangelepa dominated the charts.

The standard dating approach was taking a girlfriend out for chips and she would be satisfied. Dating was not as commercialised as it is today. I got into politics later because I was never a member of the student politics.

Mutahi Kagwe graduated with a B.Com degree (marketing) in 1981 and an MBA from USIU, 1992.