Beyond Social Capital:What we can learn from the late President Kibaki's relationship with Starehe Boy's Centre Founder the late Geoffrey Griffin

(Note: Starehe Boys' Centre and School is a leading Charity in Africa founded in 1959. The Author is an Alumni of the School)

The decision by the family of the late President Mwai Kibaki, to break military protocol around the funeral of a Head of State, and bring in the Starehe Boys' Centre Band right in the middle of a State Funeral, has got me thinking about a few things on friendship, loyalty and posterity.

It's interesting that despite being courted and admired by so many "powerful" and "influential" people in the country over its over 60 years of existence, Starehe Boy's Centre and School has had only two Patrons!

It's even more baffling when one goes through the archival news about Starehe during the early 60s to mid 80s, as I recently did. It is clearly apparent that during this period the Starehe Boys' Centre brand was so powerful that the Government of Kenya scrambled to be associated with it. So much that in one news item, the Government wrote a personal appeal to donors, pleading with them to support an institution they described as "critical to the country's education future and realizing its leadership potential."

Both Kenya's first President Kenyatta and his successor Presidents Moi went out of their way to be associated with Starehe. In fact,literally the entire political class and any government official worth their salt wanted to be seen around Starehe doing something...

So magnetic was starehe that the entire monarchy-from the Queen to the entire Royal family was mesmerized by Starehe!

But what is interesting is that throughout this period Starehe Founder Geoffrey Griffin picked and remained loyal to politicians relatively junior at the time, and who were even seen as anti-establishment in some areas. The late Griffin refused to use his power and this captivating brand to replace the first Patron, the late Thomas J Mboya, or the second Patron, Mwai Kibaki, with a more "influential" and "connected" politician or leader.

And even when the Royal Family made a beeline to the Centre, they never got anywhere to being approiached as patrons, an appointment that would have guaranteed the Centre the much needed resources and profile.

Yes,there were other interests....the British saw Starehe as a classic success story of post colonial character building in a society torn by its own legacy.

When Tom Mboya fell out with the Kenyatta Government, he never lost his position as Patron of Starehe.Neither did Mwai Kibaki get dropped when he dropped from the centre of politics and got relegated to the opposition benches in Kenya's politics!

I am sure the two governments then must have been extremely uncomfortable with these two people as Patrons of an institution that was a national symbol of an emergent Kenya and which demonstrated its future potential. They must have wondered if indeed the so called "clandestine" activities, (as opposition politics was then branded), was being hatched in a Charity institution run by a white man. Indeed this would have been perfectly well reasoned since the first thing the newly constituted Kenyan Parliament discussed after independence was the leadership of Starehe, insisting that there was no way "this?white British colonial man can objectively teach black boys in an independent Kenya". They saw whites, especially those like Griffin who had served in the colonial government,as spies.

So what can we glean from this...

The first thing is that the concept of "Friendship with benefits" has its limits...and this elastic limit is it's Waterloo.

When we talk about friendship today we speak through the lens of the famous swahili saying "akufaaye kwa dhiki ndiye rafiki"... A friend is so because one day you will need him or her.

So we tend to do good to people because we expect that they will do good to us some day....

We speak of social capital in terms of people's utility value.

If you know someone who is, or knows who is...then your network is sound.

Right?

Not really.

This idea of creating relationships based on perceived present or future benefits leads to transactional friends.

And those friendships can be shallow, exploitative and very short-lived.

The late Griffin looked for someone who had a passion for an emergent new Kenya. He found it in a young politician who was the newly elected MP for Starehe-Tom Mboya.

Griffin tagged on the passion, not power, of Tom Mboya.

And it's surprising what that yielded.

The things Mboya did in public and in private, for Starehe, only secret history will reveal.

When he fell out(internally) with the then government, Griffin didn't make "calculated" moves. He kept Mboya. And after his death Griffin new he nolonger needed a passion for an emergent Kenya. He needed someone?who believed in a world class education and character building,and had tasted it at an international School. So he picked on an LSE graduate and former Makerere Teacher known as Kibaki.

And Griffin stuck with Kibaki to death, quite literally!

Social capital...yes.

Friends with benefits

Plenty.

But it was never his primary yardstick of which friends to keep and which ones to drop.

In a world where you are dropped as CEO and the phone stops ringing, or you cease being the Head of an entity and your posts in the WhatsApp groups are nolonger blue-ticked, this is a sound lesson to us.

Griffin did get what we look for in friends.

But they were never the reason he relied on to choose who to keep close and when to drop some.

You will find this virtue in the late Griffin's many other relationships, including with the Alumni who became a notorious criminal in Kenya- Peter Gilbert Nganga aka Fari Amario aka "Why Birds Fly!"

This Alumni of Starehe caused havoc in Kenya as a notorious criminal!

But Griffin never disassociated himself with him. He even used to call him to Starehe for private counselling!

Friendship are beyond benefits.

Build them based on passion and genuine interests, then let benefits become by products.

The second lesson is that of friendship triumphing influence.

As both Tom Mboya and later Mwai Kibaki lost influence, there was surely great pressure to replace them.

After all Starehe was a national brand. How could it be associated with these two who had fallen out of favour?

But Griffin knew better.

He had built the Starehe Boys' Centre brand out of his own power, not associative power. And so when associative power waned, the brand remained intact.

Those who read or know Starehe Boys' Centre from the late 2000s and today may find this laughable considering that most of this brand power has waned and dwindled in influence. But Starehe Boys' Centre was in the 60s ,70s an d 80s such a magnet that it didn't need politicians... politicians and celebrities needed it!

Princess Anne sprinted by.

Miriam Makeba, famed South African Musician dropped by.

Pele dribbled by Starehe.

Mohamed Ali was boxed in by Starehe..

Even the then Director of the Ford Foundation in New York wrote something?in the 60s about this institution that would one day "change Africa"

Top British Schools wanted to be associated with the only School in Africa that got a perfect balance between character formation and academic prowess...they quickly admitted Starehe to the Prestigious Round Square Movement!

If we build our power around our own competencies and not just with whom we associate, we don't have to worry that we will lose it when the people we associate with lose their power.

Neither do we worry that we will pay the price of associative power, or get muddied with the friends we associate.

Starehe managed to associate with Patrick Shaw, yet even the most notorious of thieves didn't find it worthwhile to attack the School because of what Shaw did to them!

And when Kibaki became President, he didn't need to be told where his heart lay in issues of Starehe.

It had rested there, and he saw and knew it was genuine and not exploitative.

Build your own brand and power, and you will be authentic. And you don't have to keep changing your association to increase your power.

Should we associate with those with power?

By all means. They help you climb much faster and lift you much sooner.

But if it's all you look for in friends

If it's all the power you have.??

Sorry, not enough.

And Griffin knew it.

But one final lesson is on a family legacy.

Both Kibaki and Mboya were so passionate about Starehe that their families became part of their dad's cause.

And the legacy was kept, and left to continue long after.

The children knew where their dads hearts were.

They may have left politics... Kibaki retired, Tom was assassinated.

But the children never doubted where their parents hearts were.

How much of our passion is so clear our families need not even blink?

Are they ready to push it on, even if they don't understand it, because they saw it as genuine?

How many of your friends are easily transferable to your children because they know it's genuine?

Think about this.

Baraka

Paul Okumu