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

I had the privilege of living and working in Nairobi between late 2004 and the end of 2005. It was only a few months after my arrival that John Githonga suddenly left Kenya and went into exile because of death threats from those government officials whose grotesque corruption he was about to expose. Until I read "It's Our Turn to Eat" one year ago, I had limited understanding of how deeply ingrained and tribal-oriented the corruption has been. It provided the clearest and most honest explanation I have ever encountered of how profound the role of tribalism has been in Kenya, both before and since the country's independence from British rule. I only wish that I'd had the benefit of reading it before I began my attempt to help bring reform to the Kenyan law enforcement system so that I might have better understood why such efforts were naive and destined to be thwarted by those benefitting most from the status quo.

During my time in Kenya, there were frequently reports in the then newly-free press of what were astoundingly brazen and arrogant acts of corruption by one government minister or another. When their crimes were exposed, each responded in a manner that said, in essence, "so what?" or, if the acts were exposed by the U.S. or U.K., accused the messenger of acting as a hypocritical colonial power with racist attitudes towards "the Kenyan people. We in the United States certainly have corruption among our government officials, particularly in Congress. But one difference between our corrupt and those in Kenya is the arrogance and sense of entitlement among Kenyan officials that results in their not caring at all about the public reaction to such acts. It was obvious that the way to move from poverty to untold riches in Kenya was to be elected to Parliament or, even better, get appointed by the president to a ministerial post. Ms. Wrong's book puts it all into historical context and provided the kind of insider knowledge that only someone of John Githonga's stature, integrity and lifelong experience could truly piece together.

This is an extraordinary book and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to really understand why Kenya is so poor today, despite its natural riches, hundreds of millions in foreign aid and citizens who are incredibly proud, hard-working, educated, enterprising and hospitable. Time will tell whether its newly-enacted Constitution will make meaningful changes in the extent to which elected officials can continue to plunder the country's riches and leave the masses so incredibly poor.

There are three main strands in this short and gripping book. One is the extent to which high-level corruption is embedded in the (formally) democratic structures of Kenya. The second reveals the willingness of donor countries and multilaterals to go on doing business as usual after corruption is revealed and a few eye-brows have been raised .... The engrossing chapters describing both aspects confirm the conviction of many development economists that fighting corruption is a battle lost even before the fight : there is a conspiracy of silence among the leaders, and donors and multilaterals are good at barking but hardly ever bite. The third strand is the exemplary story of a man of values, John Githongo, put at the helm of an anti-corruption authority by country leaders who expected Githongo to expose graft in the previous government -but keep clear of the misdeeds of the incumbents.

Once again Michela Wrong's journalistic impressionism and meticulous reporting lights up a neglected corner of a neglected continent. Wrong is a writer with incredible sources and she knows how to weld their information into a compelling story.

The book centers on John Githongo, an idealist in a world where pragmatism ruled. He was appointed as the head of a new anti-corruption agency created by Mwai Kibaki, newly elected president of Kenya. Kibaki was only the third Chief Executive of the east African country, replacing Daniel arap Moi who ruled from 1978 to 2002 and who replaced the revered Jomo Kenyatta, founding father, freedom fighter, hero of African independence.

Kenya, according to Wrong, is structured more by tribe than anything else. Membership in the Kikuyu tribe is more important than citizenship of Kenya, for example. President Kibaki and John Githongo were Kikuyus and Githongo discovered his role in the government was to act as window dressing for donors and foreign governments, to show these very important westerners that the corrupt old days of Moi were over. They weren't, of course. The people pocketing the bribes and kickbacks changed but the method didn't and the more Githongo found out the less popular he became.

Those now in power had the same view of government as those they replaced: it was not to produce public
goods like roads, bridges, markets, irrigation, education, health care, public sanitation, clean drinking water or effective legal systems but to produce private goods for those who hold or have access to political power. Contracts don't go to the low bidder or to the company most able to perform but to whoever offers the largest bribe. The most outrageous example of this is the Anglo Leasing fiasco. Anglo was a company that existed only as an address in Liverpool--it had no plants, no equipment, produced nothing, had no contacts with those who did. It wasn't even a middleman but simply a facade so that when contracts let by the Kenyan government were paid to Kenyan officials the checks weren't made out to the individual politicians. When the government decided to update the printing and tracking of its passports Anglo was given the contact for a bid of 30 million Euros even though a French company with a long list of satisfied clients bid 6 million Euros. But it wasn't just the 500% increase in cost: Anglo Leasing had no capacity to produce passports and had no intention of doing so. They were also given contracts for a forensic lab, military vehicles even a frigate for the navy.

This is a tragic true story of one man's efforts--his obsessed and doomed striving--to vault Kenya from a well oiled kleptocracy that kept its citizens poor while the elites prospered into a functioning democracy.

The book looked to be in great condition but when I opened it up, there was a completely different book inside! Only the back and front covers were actually for its our turn to eat. Extremely disappointing!

I haven't finished reading the book yet, but the content appears to be well researched and very important for anyone who's interested in Africa.

On the other hand, the Kindle formatting is less flattering. Wrong frequently uses dashes to separate parenthetic concepts, but here they are rendered as en-dashes (U+2013), rather than em-dashes (U+2014). This makes them look almost indistinguishable from hyphens, which occasionally makes it difficult to follow. Fortunately there aren't many endnotes, because they have also been poorly rendered, without any hyperlinking.

Here's a good example of a book where my early expectations probably hurt my later appreciation of it. I thought that this book was going to be about starving Kenyans, one of whom finally stood up to corrupt authorities, and the heart-warming story of how the corruption has ended (or, even, is beginning to end) and everyone has enough to eat. That is not this book.

"It's our turn to eat" is actually a Kenyan colloquialism that refers to the fact that each political party expects the victor's spoils when they are elected to power, so no one really expects the country to keep any of its money. This book is the story of two or three consecutive ruling parties and the way they stole money from the Kenyan people. And it's true that there is a whistle-blower, but at the end of the book, Kenya isn't much better off than it was to start with - the international community just knows about the corruption a little more.

Interesting but ultimately disappointing if you're expecting a happy ending.

You can't go Wrong with Michaela. This book was tough to put down.

Written almost like a thriller, this true story tells it like it is in Kenyan politics. A gripping read.

Great read! If you are interested in Kenyan politics this is the book to read. Great insight into the Kenyan administrations.

This book was recommended by my tour, as reading for my safari in Kenyan. It was so informative for someone who knew so little about the history of the country and its current politics, culture, etc.