‘I went to Alliance’: Why do they keep boasting about it?

And all he had done was simply restate an empirical and verifiable truth: he did go to Alliance, where his school number is 5211. He inhabited Aggrey House, Dorm 7.

Snapshots

At the funeral service of former Cabinet minister Joe Nyagah in December 2020, Kisumu Governor Prof Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o paid his tribute by speaking of Great Ties that Bind. Fittingly, he also wore the Alliance High School tie, which he had worn while a student there in the 1960s.

Over three decades later, as he reminisced about a lifelong friendship that had started at Alliance, Prof Nyong’o would preface it with the pithy observation that “Men are Always Boys”. No Boys-to-Men stuff for those who went to Alliance; on exit, one becomes and remains an Old Boy!

Here’s another Snapshot: Fred Swaniker, the founder of the African Leadership Academy in South Africa and the ALU in Mauritius and Rwanda, visited the Alliance High School in 2007 after his curiosity was piqued by an aberration when he had previously met CEOs in the US. 

The aberration: John Gachora, now the CEO of NCBA Bank, had introduced himself at that meeting by stating that prior to joining Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his undergraduate and graduate studies and later Wharton Business School for his MBA, he had attended Alliance High School. No one else in the room had introduced himself and made reference to their respective high school, triggering Swaniker’s curiosity.

Alliance ‘kitu gani’?

In early March 1986, former President Daniel arap Moi, in the high noon of his authoritarian tenure, expressed puzzlement that his first sight that day of Alliance High School hadn’t induced been the expected “psychological shock”; as he did not espy any grandiloquent architectural edifice to match the school’s fearsome reputation. There was simply nothing spectacular to marvel at. Instead, he had come upon some old (and mostly dilapidated) structures that had been in use since the school’s inception in 1926, then 60 years before!

A common mistake, this, of those who mentally visualise Alliance High School as befitting the structural equivalent of an opulent and extravagantly laid-out fantasy theme park.

But no! Alliance High School is not just a school located in a thicket in Kikuyu, as one critic piercingly prodded. It is more. Much, much more. It is the people — students, teachers, non-academic staff, Old Boys, managers, board members, founder churches and local community — and its values. And this is what molds and grounds its formidable personality and indomitable character. It is this personality and character that are expressed in the words of the school prayer. “Have in thy keeping O Lord Our God.”

Founded by an alliance of four Protestant churches, Alliance High School has God first and last. In whatever name, there is acknowledgement and recognition of The One who is the Alpha and the Omega. And of His glorious benevolence and generosity to one and all who belong to the brotherhood that is Alliance High School.

This school, that its work may be thorough and its life joyful

Invariably seen as the academic titan throughout the history of this nation, it is not to just scholarship where excellence is expected at Alliance. Rather, in every facet of existence is excellence to be sedulously pursued: creating a remarkable ethos of outstanding signature-performances that are easily recognisable whenever one encounters an Alliance student or Old Boy.

And life at Alliance is indeed joyful, as noted Prof Nyong’o. The years at Alliance were full of youthful experiences which remained printed in our minds, sometimes even romanticised, as nostalgia became the pass time of men rapidly being swallowed by adulthood and its many earthly responsibilities.

That from it may go out, Strong in Body and Mind and Character

The ethos of good health — physical, mental and spiritual — as well as impeccable social hygiene is intricately woven into the fabric of Alliance High School. This holistic approach is critical in molding balanced, deep and engaging students who are always ready to prove that, as Eliud Kipchoge remarkably demonstrated while lowering the two-hour mark in the marathon, “No human is limited.”

Men who in Thy Name and with Thy Power, will Serve their fellows faithfully…

The motto of Alliance High School is “Strong to Serve”, which indicates the foundation of the burning ambition to be of service to fellow men and women. There, obviously, has been trenchant criticism of the role the school and those associated with it have played in creating the national psychosis that has created the dysfunctional state that is Kenya.

What normally goes unrecognised and unremarked, however, is how many AHS alumni have also been at the heart of struggles to cure this psychosis: the likes of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, George Moseti Anyona, Kenneth Njindo Matiba, James Aggrey Bob Orengo, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Peter Anyang Nyong’o, Makau Mutua, Maina Kiai, Njonjo Mue, George Kegoro and Prof Alfred Omenya, for instance. Other Alliance alumni include current Laikipia Governor Ndiriitu Muriithi. 

So Alliance High School has been bi-polar! But pray, who amongst us hasn’t?

The views are the author’s and do not reflect those of any organisation he may be associated with.