Last weekend, the internet was ablaze with a video clip about something that happened recently in my former highschool. Every whence I turned on social media, the clip was there. The old boys, some of them old enough to have a son or two in the school, were super excited about the nomination of two students who were actors in the movie Mwanga shot in the school. Eric Mutura, the lead actor and Raphael Kalekei  had been nominated for Kalasha Film Awards.  I know you’re curious about which school it is, right? But to keep those who have rudely accused me of having gone to St. Mary’s because of my supposedly strong art of articulating articles in my distant third language guessing, I will stay mum for now. 

It’s not the first time this former Nation School was on the news but this time it was for a good reason. A reason that was celebrated with infectious pride by all who went to this school. And for this, Facebook and WhatsApp almost experienced Meta of their servers as clips bounced from this group to that friend – Yeah, Meta means death in Hebrew. One of my friends followed the link with a bold announcement that he saw it on the news shortly before sharing. His text seemed to emphasize that it wasn’t just the nomination that counted but also the fact that the school had made it to national news on a major network.  In one of the  WhatsApp groups that I am a proud member of, the youngest member is staring straight at the big four zero and arrives there in a few months. But the online celebrations would have made you think we all left the highschool last year. 

I was excited too and felt like I knew these students who acted in the movie personally as well as the school’s principal who was featured in the clip even though I was seeing them for the first time. Truth be told, the nominees were most likely born the year I graduated with my bachelor’s or much later. Had the current school’s principal gone to this particular school for his highschool education, he most likely would have been on our WhatsApp group. But you would never have known it from the forwards and comments. These comments, expressed with such a sense of ownership and pride, were coined in present and present continuous tension. They made it feel like this was our principal too.

These feelings of brotherhood with kids less than half our age who are unknown to us, the alumni, was profound. First, this experience made me think about how one can be celebrated across the globe  with good comments, likes and emojis and never know it.  Of course Eric and Raphael, the nominees, are not in any of these old boys’ groups with a population exceeding 2000 and will thus never know the celebratory comments and likes that filled the platforms. I was awed by the power of influence through good deeds and words that transcend boundaries, generations and cliques completely invisible to the influencer. The impact that an influencer has on people in distant lands and islands which will never be known to him. As an author and artist who is mostly blind to his influence, if there is any, I was deeply inspired. 

Secondly and most importantly was the power of formative years. The psychological stage first theorized by Erickson was not a theory here but was palpably alive. From the reactions this nomination elicited, it was clear that the school was a womb that made it a parent to anyone processed here during 14 through 18 years of age. So, in many ways the school made us permanent brothers. Brotherhood that was founded on a name, an experience and  a parent. A  parent who only has a name and a womb. 

Each of us went to this parent without knowledge of self in form-one but left the school after form-four with our self-identity firmly and permanently formed. It’s here we first became the persons we are today. When you peel off the pot bellies, strip the suits, fill-up the bald-heads and dye the gray hairs, what would be left is the man who became one at the age of eighteen. The man formed in and by the school. The identity formed on the inside of each of us in or around form-four is singular, permanent and enduring. Our titles, degrees, honors and recognitions do little to this identity. This man who first became in or around form-four is and will be until his last sun. 

My reflection on this Erickson’s stage of development was prompted by a signpost that opened the nomination’s clip that had aired on Citizen TV. The signpost which was erected in the assembly’s grounds right in front of the administration block had this inscription, “THIS IS A  CORRUPTION FREE ZONE”. The use of this inscription as the introduction of the piece was spot-on as Mwanga was a movie about corruption. The movie sheds light on corruption in a high school’s music club run by cartels, as we lazily refer to corrupt men with real names and faces, but it was corruption nonetheless. On seeing the signpost though, I immediately and almost helplessly asked myself this question. Where does the corruption zone begin? Not that I had a ready bribe and was looking for a corruption zone to execute. Infact, I was watching the clip seventeen thousand kilometers from where the school was. I hoped that the signpost was not stating that the assembly grounds where it was located was a holy ground as this is where hymns are sung and thus not suitable for corruption either. It seemed to point to a different and separate location suitable for corruption.

In an attempt to process the sign and its meaning, I pictured myself in the school and the only place that came  close to a zone not covered by the sign would be behind the Squashroom on the west end of the school compound. For the wall bears witness that people known to me used the fence right next under the cover of darkness to access a nearby shopping center for drinks and I am not talking about sodas. No! I am not this confident because I was among them but saw them while heading to pray for them here in the abandoned Squashroom whose acoustics made secretly whispered prayers public. 

Unable to find any zone suitable for corruption within its compound, I figured the signpost must be alerting all people that the school was not a place where bribes would be exchanged. But since the word ‘zone’ implies demarcations and  specificity of a place, it silently seemed to state that it was ok to be corrupt at the fence or gate. With the signpost written in bright red, it was abundantly clear that inside the school was not a zone appropriate for corruption. But at the gate, instructions were not available regarding corruption and the missing signage seemed to authorize or designate it there.   

This is not the first time I have seen such a sign though. I have seen them in government and corporate offices. But on watching the viral clip, I finally placed a finger on exactly why such a sign bothered me. In one office that will remain unnamed, I had seen a screaming sign with the same inscription when I went there a few years ago to sell a multi-million idea.  The manager there kept insisting that we should meet for lunch elsewhere to discuss the idea. Since I had a hunch about the lunch and why he made such insistence,  I abandoned the pursuit of a service that would have saved the company millions of shillings annually in medical claims. Their medical department is still bankrupt because of corruption from where I sit. For just like the school, the sign did not condemn bribery but only the zone and the manager in this company knew it. He wanted inducement in a location without the signage. I was horrified but not surprised.

But the one in the  school compound worried me most as this sign was inadvertently sowing and forming unethical and subliminal seeds in the minds of kids in their formative years seeing it daily for four years. As demonstrated by the bond that was formed in this womb that connects men with boys as brothers even when they have never met, we have to be mindful of what we teach in this stage of psychological development. Information that we provide in any form in this stage in-forms or forms the inside. What we teach and expose to kids in their  formative years  has the potential of becoming helplessly permanent. The manager is the evidence of that permanency and perhaps of a  hopeless case but we have a chance to rid corruptionitis with this generation.

Mugala muue na haki umpe… in the clip, I saw other signs that the school had gotten right like Knowledge is Power; the school motto inscribed boldly on the administration block. In my years there,  this motto was changed while I was in form three to read in Kikuyu. The trials of a teenager! Boys wore sweaters in January’s heat in embarrassment when we went to girls’ schools to cover the shirt’s pocket that read – Ugí wí Mbere ya Hinya. The Principal at the time, questioned why it was ok for Alliance  Girls which we were infatuated with as our ‘girlfriend’ school to have theirs in Italian and we were not in Italy. He had a point but Swahili would have been more appropriate to inclusively celebrate our Africanness and I am not just saying that because Tumbo, Akilimali and Shingira in my class said so.  

The other sign done right was seen in the clip  by the edge of the administration block with these words, “I LOVE MY LIFE, I DON’T USE DRUGS.” This sign made it clear that drugs can kill either the person or his dreams and thus to use them is to seek death of either or both. This was a sign forming right men! This was a sign rightly in-forming. It was in-forming and trans-forming the kid reading it daily to be responsible regardless of his zone or who was watching.  Imagine if this sign said, “THIS IS A DRUG FREE ZONE” instead. Having seen signs designating smoking  zones in a lot of places, if a student wanted to do drugs, he would be forgiven if he asked the Principal to point him to the right place. Right?

The sign in this school that I now proudly introduce to you as Kirangari High School to the disappointment of my accusers, must be changed.  Any sign everywhere in this land and indeed Africa should make it clear that corruption is an ethical and moral issue not a zoning problem. Such signs should be changed to; “CORRUPTION IS IMMORAL AND UNETHICAL AND IS NOT TOLERATED HERE”

If we fail to change these signs,  bribery and corruption will continue at the gate of the school, the university, the church, the office, the building or the institution in this country  and continent. Corruption will continue because we successfully taught unsuitable zones  as opposed to the right and location independent principle in formative years. We will keep wondering why we are so corrupt and not realize our formative years’ exposure to such signposts daily instruct our behavior long after graduation. In such an upbringing, it’s ok to bribe at the gate. We must stop it!!!

Robert Mwangi, MBA is the Author of the books President’s Advisor, Money Circles Five Fingers and Dollar Altar. He also composed and sung ZIBA UFA