Scottish Op-ed on Kenyan Graft Scandals

[Onyango Oloo]

Sunday Herald, Scotland

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Corruption Cocktail Needs Shaking Up

Trevor Royle on the ongoing scandals in Kenya’s heart

For far too long Africa and corruption have been the gin and tonic of the continent’s political affairs. Add a little ice and lemon in the shape of bribes and pocket-lining and the cocktail is complete. It would be nice to think that a new century had brought with it a new abstinence, but events in Kenya are sorry proof that the addiction shows no sign of abatement. In fact, as the case of former president Daniel arap Moi shows only too clearly, the craving is as strong as in the bad old days when African leaders lived high on the hog.

When President Mwai Kibaki’s administration came to power in 2002, its immediate aim was to extirpate the kind of corruption which had made Moi and his ministers a byword for bad behaviour. Yet its first response is already looking decidedly wobbly.
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[Onyango Oloo]

As many people know, Oloo is not EXACTLY a big fan of columnist Jerry Okung'u. However, he seems to be asking some of the awkward questions that have had me pilloried on this same JUKWAA forum.

Here is his latest column:

The now famous Watergate Scandal brought Richard Nixon, one of America’ most powerful presidents to his knees. He was forced out of office to save the integrity of the presidency and his republican party. The Watergate tapes, when played on international networks, were as telling and as devastating to Nixon as the Githongo tapes have been to President Kibaki and his regime.

If President Mwai Kibaki were an American president, he would have either resigned by now or Congress would be preparing to impeach him.

Unlike the Nixon saga, the scandals involving the Anglo Leasing, whose tapes hitting the airwaves were recorded by a civil servant and a trusted employee of the President. They were not unearthed by persistent investigative news reporters like those boys from the Washington Post who braved fire and brimstone to tell Americans that their president was up to no good.

Forget about Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiongo, Micere Mugo, Shadrack Guto or any one of those yesteryear’s political exiles. They never did and would never match John Githongo’s fame.

For the first time in our lifetime, we have a celebrity fugitive, living in London under tight British security. With the world press lurking at every corner looking for Githongo, his celebrity status is almost peaking in the neighbourhoods of Osama bin Laden or that of Saddam Hussein when he was on the run.

Then there is another first for Githongo. He becomes the first Kenyan ever to be invited into exile in Britain at a time when many Kenyans must wait for days or weeks to get a British visa. More than that, he becomes the first permanent secretary in the Kenya Government to spy on his cabinet ministers, secretly record conversations with them then release the same in a foreign country.
Read on...

[Onyango Oloo]

...As a friend of the whistle-blower in question, I am not neutral. Yet I am convinced that the Githongo story is one of those flares history periodically sends up, alerting us to an important change taking place on the continent: a generation of well-educated, self-confident and frustrated young Africans is preparing to call time on its fathers' ways of doing business.

Whereas Goldenberg came to light because of the misgivings of a lowly clerk, this scandal, arguably Kenya's equivalent of Watergate, was made public by the most trusted, high-profile of insiders. Reading the dossier I was struck by the way ministers are alleged to have blurted out highly self-incriminating statements in front of the man assigned to clean up graft. They simply assumed Githongo would keep their secrets. Those assumptions were based on ethnicity and class.

Githongo is a member of the Kikuyu tribe, to which President Mwai Kibaki also belongs. Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's founding father, was a Kikuyu, but after his death this large, prosperous group was marginalised as Kenyatta's successor, Daniel arap Moi, pulled together a coalition of smaller groups resentful of Kikuyu success. The election of Kibaki represented a Kikuyu comeback, and soon voters were complaining that the government had been hijacked by a group of presidential golfing buddies from Central Province and the neighbouring Embu and Meru districts, who were called "the Mount Kenya Mafia". The mafia believed that it had an ally in Githongo....

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Click Here for the rest of the article.....

[Onyango Oloo]

There is this Kenyan who I know very, very well who wrote a long letter to John Githongo on March 3, 2004.

Here is the letter for those who never had a chance to read it before...