Embakasi Member of Parliament Paul Ongili alias Babu Owino has opened up on why he chose to pursue four university degrees.
Speaking on TV47 on Friday night, Ongili said having been born and raised in a poor family, his family members did not have the privilege to attend school.
With no other source of income, they grew up selling chang’aa which in most cases led to several house raids by policemen.
During such raids, he would witness his mother being roughed up and beaten by the policemen.
“When I was growing my background was so sorry, so poor. We were selling chang’aa, nobody went to school in our house. My mom dropped in Form two, my sister did not get the privilege to go to school and my brother because there was no fee,” he said.
The ODM legislator said they sat down as a family and agreed that at least one of them was to be taken to school.
It was during the meeting that his brother and my sister opted that he was the one to be taken to school hence he decided to four degrees.
“The Actuarial Science First Class Honors was for my mother, then after that I did Masters in Architectural Science for my sister then after that I did LLB Law degree for my brother then Masters in law for myself,” Babu Owino said.
“I wanted to do a degree for everybody in that house so that was the motivation because as we were growing up we were told that education is the key to success so I saw why can’t I have many keys to success,” he added.
Babu Owino further revealed that he would always pray to God to get him out of the slums and in turn he would help people.
It was from this that he said his leadership career grew before being elected as Embakasi East MP.
Before that, he had served in several leadership roles.
In primary school, for instance, he was a prefect from class three to class six, served as an assistant head boy in class seven and as a head boy in class eight.
“The reason why I am in leadership is because I always asked God to give me an opportunity, should he remove me from the slums in return I would help his people,” he said.
While studying at Kisumu Boys he also served as a student leader from Form 1 to Form 4 before joining A- levels where he was also a head boy for two terms.
At the University of Nairobi, he was a student leader for four terms.
