It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower

In Kenya, the word "eat" is often used to mean "consume money", and there is a vast amount of eating described in this book. The book is about John Githongo, a former journalist who was the head of the Kenyan branch of Transparency International, who was appointed Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics in January 2003 by the new Kenyan President Kibaki, who had campaigned on a strong anti-corruption platform. President Moi had ruled Kenya for 24 years, and his government had been known for its corruption, which particularly favoured Moi's ethnic group, the Kalenjin. It took only a few months after the new government was elected for insiders to become aware that the extent of corruption was to be undiminished, but it was now to favour the Kikuyu, Kibaki's ethnic group. Githongo happened to be a Kikuyu himself, so it was naturally assumed that his conscience would be willing to bend in favour of tribal loyalty. When Githongo refused to accede to the corruption he started receiving death threats, eventually resulting in his exile to England. He had taken the precaution of secretly recording incriminating conversations, and there was a great deal of interest when he published these recordings. A couple of Kenyan ministers were sacked before being reinstated 6 months or so later. Some foreign aid was stopped as a result of the scandal, but the Make Poverty History campaign and lobbying from celebrities has made donor governments more concerned about pushing aid out the door than whether it is being used productively, so much of the aid has been restored. The book is well written and very entertaining, but the culture of impunity in Kenya for corrupt politicians continues.

Michela Wrong's third and latest book is an outstanding read. Having been the FT correspondent in Kenya for several years, Wrong has an excellent grasp of Kenya's history and contemporary political scene and it shows in her writing and analysis. Corruption is often lamented by commentators the world over and it usually just leads to people shrugging as though there is nothing they can do about it. This story explains what happens to one man who decided to try to do something about it and paid heavily for his courage. Yet Wrong explains just how complicit the international donor agencies were in the Kenyan debacle, to the extent that the World Bank tried to downplay the violence that followed the last election. There is something that ordinary westerners can do about the corruption in African countries - put pressure on their own donor agencies to stop funneling more and more taxpayers money into the corrupt governments. These funds become the life blood of corrupt regimes and allows them to continue to repress their own people. This book helps us understand Kenya, corruption, development or lack thereof. It is a gripping read and highly recommended. Not for nothing the Kenyan govt. has tried to suppress it and almost every Kenyan I have spoken to is desperate to get a copy.

It's Our Turn to Eat is a real-life political thriller that lifts the curtain on the inner workings of an African government. And where else do you get that? Most books by outsiders about Africa - the ones you see on the bestseller lists - trade in cliches and stereotypes. They divide the continent into innocent victims and venal dictators. At one extreme you get books that could be titled: "My Adventures in ..." (fill in the war-torn country). At the other, you get dry textbooks by people who spent years researching their subject but don't know how to tell a story. This book is far smarter. It doesn't aim for an everything-you-need-to-know-about-Africa view of the continent. Instead it says more by saying less, focusing on the story of how John Githongo became a whistle blower at the heart of Kenya's government, why he blew the whistle and what happened next. Githongo comes across as a visionary but if he's a saint he's a 21st century kind of saint. He makes silly decisions as well as brave ones. He infuriates his friends by constantly skipping appointments. He might have a true moral compass but by the end of the book it's not clear how he's going to get there and even he doesn't seem to know. In other words, he's a rich, rounded character: not a cliche, not a stereotype. One other thing to like about the book: it has cool enemies. Michela Wrong shares Githongo's view of corruption and she writes with controlled outrage. Yet the villains of the story aren't so much the looters themselves. They're the army of donors and diplomats who have invested so much in the status quo they can't really imagine Kenya - and by extension Africa - being any different. And she nails them: certain senior diplomats and aid donors will not enjoy this book. But you will.

It's not clear to me why other reviewers persistently recharacterize one of this book's strongest points as a negative. The author has brought to bear her considerable experience with the country, region, culture, and political landscape to tell a story that has long needed telling about Africa's failure to come to grips with the tyranny of corruption. As long as donor nations continue to fund the kleptocracies that exist only to serve and perpetuate themselves, we in the west will continue to be played for fools. I found this to be a strong and engaging account of one of the more intractable problems I've run into. I wish it had left me feeling hopeful, but it was far too consistent with my own experience to permit such self-delusion. Instead, it left me filled with admiration for a hero who, thanks to the author's incorporation of her personal experience, can be seen as a human and not as the caricature that time will eventually make of him. I also appreciate the historical and political canvass she offered to illuminate just how audacious his actions were. Yes, the book does have the occasional hyphen, but the prose is never dull and the account moves very briskly. I found the style refreshing and enjoyed reading a treatment that mixed the personal with the historical with the social with the legal with a touch of suspense in a package that showed some respect for the reader who is hoping for something more considered than what might be offered from the Live Aid stage.