The historian who loved his banking career

An illustration of a youthful Dr Benjamin Kipkorir. ILLUSTRATION | STANLAUS MANTHI 

By John Kamau

On November 13, 2013, I had an appointment with one of Kenya’s pioneer historians-turned-banker, Dr Benjamin Kipkorir, at his 7th floor office at the AACC building on Waiyaki Way, Nairobi.

It was not a media interview, and so he was perhaps more candid than I had expected – including a telling statement why he thought Moi had picked him as executive chairman at Kenya Commercial Bank.

By joining the banking industry, Kipkorir, a graduate of Makerere and University of London, had abandoned the history profession and life as an academic.

I had always wondered how the history discourse in Kenya would have been had he stayed on at a university faculty.

We spoke of his peers: Dr Josephat Njuguna Karanja (who left the Department of History at the University of Nairobi to become High Commissioner to UK), Prof Gideon Were, Prof Idha Salim, Prof Godfrey Muriuki, Prof Atieno Odhiambo and Prof Bethwell Allan Ogot, among others, before we embarked on the purpose of my visit – his life as a banker.

In private, Kipkorir, an Alliance High School alumnus, had always regarded himself as a reluctant academic. Although this would later become the title of his biography: Descent from Cherang’any Hills: Memoirs of a Reluctant Academic, it had become public knowledge after a slip-of-the-tongue during an interview with the Weekly Review in 1985. “Have you read it?” He asked while reaching for a copy from the shelves. Luckily, I had – and the article, too.

He was proud of his Alliance background and his PhD thesis was titled: Alliance High School and the Making of an African Elite.

After his graduation, Kipkorir joined the Department of History at the University College, Nairobi, first as a special lecturer, before becoming a full lecturer in January 1970, a senior lecturer in 1973 and director of the Institute of African Studies (IAS) in September, 1977.

In his later years, Kipkorir hardly spoke to the press and had retreated to this Waiyaki Way office full of books and mementos, and where he whiled his life away doing private consultancy.

As the tea was served, I noticed that his signature shaggy grey hair and beard had changed little from his KCB days. In between, he told me that it was due to trust that Moi settled on him as the executive chairman of KCB – a powerful position once held by his two immensely wealthy predecessors John Michuki and Phillip Ndegwa.

Looking at his modest office, one could tell that Kipkorir possessed neither the capitalist spirit of his predecessors nor the destructive nature of some of his successors.

“I am proud of what I did at KCB, and left the bank without any scandals,” he said as a matter of fact.

Shortly after the attempted coup in 1982, Moi started dismantling the system left by President Jomo Kenyatta and crafting his own empire. He looked for homeboys he could trust.

“I have no doubt whatsoever that had it not been for the 1982 coup [attempt] I would not have got that job. Maybe I would have got it later,” he revealed.

One misconception at the time – and which would persist – was that Moi had plucked Kipkorir from UoN’s history department straight to the C-Suite at KCB.