Amani National Congress (ANC) leader Musalia Mudavadi has revealed the lavish lifestyle a former Member of Parliament enjoyed as he served as a student leader at Nairobi School.
In his recently published autobiography, Soaring Above the Storms of Passion, the former vice president discloses how he always wondered how George Nyamweya, who would later become a nominated Member of Parliament, would smoke a pipe in the open.
He details the privileges enjoyed the head prefect at the national school in the 1970s that included having his own personal car.
Mudavadi recalls that whenever guests visited Nairobi School, students would be allowed to ditch school uniform and that was when flamboyant students showcased their luxury.
“He also had a car, a Citroen, which would often be seen elegantly parked outside his study room. While the rest of us lived in dormitories that were called “houses”, George Nyamweya, the head boy had an independent cubicle all to himself.
“Ben Wakhungu was known for having the then exclusive Brut cologne. We would mill around him to borrow his scent. Ben was very generous and did not mind our being rather liberal with his cologne. The whole place would be redolent with Wakhugu’s Brut for the rest of the day,” he pointed out.
He had joined the school from Jamhuri High School where he had been for one term.
At Nairobi School, he also interacted with other people who would turn out to be influential leaders in Kenya.
Eseli Simiyu, the current MP for Kimilili was their dorm monitor at a period in his life when Mudavadi played rugby earning himself the nickname ‘Phantom’.
Mudavadi would also come close to enjoying the benefits of school prefects when he rose to become the head of Kirinyaga House dormitory in 1978 before joining the University of Nairobi to study Land Economics.
