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

Many years ago, as a reporter based in Nairobi, I recall asking a Kenyan man ahead of elections whether he favored then President Daniel Arap Moi or one of the country’s opposition leaders. The man, without hesitation, launched into a vicious verbal attack on Moi, calling him a scoundrel and a thief, a dictator and a thug, and other names.

So, I said, I guess when it comes to an election, you’ll vote for the opposition candidate.
Oh no, said the man, I will vote for Moi.

When I said I was confused, the man explained: Moi has been in power so long, he and his cronies have stolen all they really want, have become fabulously wealthy and now only need (and I coined this phrase) “maintenance level corruption”. If we elect the opposition, he said, it will be very bad for us because they will be starting their corruption fresh. They will take everything, leaving us nothing. So that’s why I will vote for Moi.

This story came to mind as I read Michela Wrong’s magnificent new book, “It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower”.

It is about John Githongo, an affable former journalist who I knew in the 1990’s who becomes anti-corruption czar under Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, the man who succeeded Moi in 2002, and how he soon comes to grief as he uncovers massive official malfeasance by senior level officials in Kibaki’s then newly-elected government.

The book is more than about corruption. It gets to one of the root of causes of corruption: ethnic affiliations (or “tribalism” –something many Westerners refuse to discuss for fear of appearing racist). Under Moi, the Kalenjin tribes “ate” at the public trough. Under Kibaki, the Kikuyu took their turn to “eat.”

Githongo, a Kikuyu, hoped it would be different. In the end, he refused to be bound by appeals to his ethnic loyalty and soon found himself with no alternative but to leave Kenya and go public with his secret evidence.

Woven throughout the book is another of Africa’s critical problems – the “blind eye” turned by western donor institutions to official corruption in countries like Kenya.

This is Michela Wrong’s third book. Her first was the outstanding “In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo.” Her second was the much-overlooked but equally stunning story of Eritrea called “I Didn’t Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation.”

I have known Michela since we shared adjacent office space in Nairobi’s Chester House in the 1990’s. We recently had dinner in Washington when she came to the U.S. for a brief book tour. The inscription she left on my copy of “It’s Our Turn to Eat” was meant as a play on something we joked about during the meal. But it is in fact true: she is “The Empress of modern African writing.”

If you have any serious interest in Africa, read this book!