Product Description

In January 2003, Kenya—seen as the most stable country in Africa—was hailed as a model of democracy after the peaceful election of its new president, Mwai Kibaki. By appointing respected longtime reformer John Githongo as anticorruption czar, the new Kikuyu government signaled its determination to end the corrupt practices that had tainted the previous regime. Yet only two years later, Githongo himself was on the run, having discovered that the new administration was ruthlessly pillaging public funds.

"Under former President Moi, his Kalenjin tribesmen ate. Now it's our turn to eat," politicians and civil servants close to the president told Githongo. As a member of the government and the president's own Kikuyu tribe, Githongo was expected to cooperate. But he refused to be bound by ethnic loyalty. Githongo had secretly compiled evidence of official malfeasance and, at great personal risk, made the painful choice to go public. The result was Kenya's version of Watergate.

Michela Wrong's account of how a pillar of the establishment turned whistle-blower, becoming simultaneously one of the most hated and admired men in Kenya, grips like a political thriller. At the same time, by exploring the factors that continue to blight Africa—ethnic favoritism, government corruption, and the smug complacency of Western donor nations—It's Our Turn to Eat probes the very roots of the continent's predicament. It is a story that no one concerned with our global future can afford to miss.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11214 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-01
• Released on: 2009-06-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780061346583
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Kenya's dysfunctional state is the subject of this gripping profile of an anti-corruption crusader. Journalist Wrong (In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz) tells the story of John Githongo, a journalist and activist (and Wrong's personal friend) who joined newly elected Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's administration in 2003 as anti-corruption czar. Githongo's reformist hopes were betrayed when his investigation of a contracting scandal earned him the enmity of colleagues, death threats and smear campaigns. He fled to Britain in 2005, taking along secret recordings of conversations in which powerful officials implicated themselves in the scam. Githongo, a charming idealist with an intransigence bordering on egomania, is a magnetic protagonist for Wrong's exposé of the machinery of corruption. She dissects the deeper problem of Kenya's patronage system, which exploits the state as a source of loot and makes allowances for the tribal parties in power. The resulting graft and discrimination—which Wrong argues fueled the communal slaughter surrounding Kenya's 2007 election—reinforces Kenyans' view of existence as a merciless contest, in which only ethnic preference offers hope of survival. Githongo's saga highlights this pan-African problem and addresses possibilities for change. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Accompanying the fanfare of President Obama's visit to Ghana in July was a chorus of well-founded praise for that country's functioning democracy. The U.S. president pointed to his host country as a shining example, while warning other nations on the continent that "Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions." Political pundits and the media reinforced Obama's message, holding up Ghana as Africa's success story. Not so long ago, Ghana shared the limelight with Kenya, the country of Obama's paternal past. But the vote-tampering and widespread ethnic violence that marred the 2007 Kenyan elections left observers shaking their heads, wondering how the idyll of East Africa could have gone so wrong, so quickly. A well-functioning, multiparty government buoyed by an impressive 6 percent annual growth rate had made for a potent combination in the post-colonial dream world. The blurring of fantasy and reality, however, was laid bare in the smoldering rubble of election violence that left some 1,500 Kenyans dead and at least 300,000 internally displaced. Journalist Michela Wrong provides a very important and illuminating account of Kenya's present-day political and economic morass. On one level, "It's Our Turn to Eat" reads like a John le Carré novel as it traces the cloak-and-dagger maneuverings of Kenya's political bosses, and the heroic but futile attempts of John Githongo -- the government's internal, anti-corruption watchdog, and the protagonist of Wrong's account -- to stymie them. On a deeper and much richer level, the book is an analysis of how and why Kenya descended into political violence more than a year and a half ago. For Wrong, the insidious bedfellows of corruption and tribalism inhabit nearly every sphere of Kenyan existence. At the upper echelons of government, members of parliament connived to defraud the country of some $750 million through the notorious Anglo-Leasing scheme; at the lower levels of society, the ordinary Kenyan doles out on average 16 bribes a month to government agents simply to get by. These factors, as Wrong points out, have been present in Kenya since the inauguration of the country's first independent government in 1963, despite the rather rosy and misplaced image that characterized the nation, at least in the Western media, for decades. First, under the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta, the Kikuyu, Kenya's ethnic majority, benefited disproportionately from the state's spoils. Kenyatta surrounded himself with a coterie of loyal ethnic supporters who systematically excluded non-Kikuyu from participating in their quest for power and ill-gotten wealth. Subsequently, when Daniel T. arap Moi took power in 1978, the new president continued with the tribally based corruption. Only this time, Moi, who came from the ethnic-minority Kalenjin of western Kenya, redirected the flow of wealth and power to his tribal base of supporters. For the Kalenjin and other closely related tribes, it was their turn to eat. It was Githongo -- a Western-educated, physically imposing and exceedingly shrewd man -- who was to herald the literal and symbolic end to this vicious cycle of corruption and ethnic favoritism. When Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, took presidential power in 2002, he declared his election a mandate for reform and appointed the young Githongo, also a Kikuyu, to root out the old bogies that had undermined Kenya's progress. It wasn't long, though, before Githongo's starry eyes cleared, only to find his revered mentor, Kibaki, knee-deep in the corruption game, with a supporting cast of legislators aiding and abetting theft from the state's coffers. With much drama, Githongo eventually fled Kenya, taking with him piles of documents and secretly taped conversations. He landed on the London doorstep of Wrong, an old acquaintance. Given this personal connection, Wrong is notably self-aware of her position as both author and partial subject of her own book. Indeed, her personal involvement scarcely compromises her excellent analysis of Kenya's twin evils; rather, she deftly points to the fact that corruption and tribalism are not endemic just to Africa, but inhabit the contemporary, worldwide landscape, and that complicity reaches to all corners of the globe as well. If the old-boy system is not an African artifact, and if undemocratic processes have no boundaries -- many a Kenyan will snicker at the mention of a hanging chad -- how then does Wrong make sense of the localized events in Kenya? By "probing the roots of a dysfunctional African nation" and its British colonial legacy, as well as Kenya's more recent entanglements with the likes of the World Bank and Britain's Department for International Development, Wrong takes a decidedly Paul Wolfowitz-like stand. That is, political systems are at the heart of the problem and must be reformed if there is any hope for the alleviation of poverty -- and not just in Kenya. It's difficult to argue against Wrong on this point, though the roots and solutions to Kenya's problems are far more embedded in the country's past than she suggests. Colonial Kenya -- with its white tribe of settlers and administrators, economic monopolies and perpetuation of African tribalism, and a governor who ruled with highly centralized powers and a posse of loyal underlings to support him -- bears an uncanny resemblance to the country today. Moreover, while Wrong praises Britain's former highest-ranking ambassador to Kenya, High Commissioner Edward Clay, and his anti-corruption stance, she fails to mention that, while Clay was making his strongest denunciations of corruption, the full impact of Britain's colonial violence and coverups was finally being disclosed in Kenya. Britain's colonial legacy has undermined its moral authority and continues to influence processes in Kenya, no matter how complicit Africans have been in perpetuating corruption and tribalism. The historical phenomenon of colonialism and its long-term impact vary across the continent, making the trajectory of a former settler colony such as Kenya distinct from that of Ghana, and many other African nations, for that matter. If strongmen are to be eliminated and institutions reformed -- as both Obama and Wrong urge -- then the historical differences among various African countries, and the ways in which these differences inform and shape present-day governing structures and cultures, must be thoroughly understood.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist
In 2003, when Mwai Kibaki was elected to replace Kenyan president Moi, the peaceful transition was hailed locally and internationally as the end of rampant corruption and tribal favoritism. John Githongo, a former journalist and longtime critic of government corruption, was named to head an anti-corruption commission. But Githongo was alternately hopeful and skeptical about the new government. Soon scandals and rumors of scandals emerged of officials eating at the government trough. Githongo, a member of the leading Kikuyu tribe, began to surreptitiously tape conversations with government figures to document corruption and became the target of threats. Journalist Wrong provided temporary shelter when, two years after joining Kibaki’s administration, Githongo fled Kenya, taking with him incriminating evidence of graft. Wrong offers a compelling analysis of Kenya’s history of tribalism and corruption, dating back to British colonialism, and the dramatic story of one man’s bravery and the ultimate price he paid. Written with the pace of a thriller and a depth of analysis of a nation and a man, this is a compelling look at a nation struggling to overcome its past. --Vanessa Bush

Customer Reviews

A very good introduction to the politics of corruption
Wrong's book is cast as a biography of John Githongo, the former Kenyan anticorruption czar who blew the whistle on the Anglo Leasing scandal and fled for his life. Using Githongo's story, Wrong is able to weave in a substantial amount of important background information on Kenya, on ethnic politics, on corruption, and on aid delivery. It's a lovely and readable introduction to these issues, if a bit long, and I'm buying another copy as a gift for someone who has no knowledge of Africa, aid or corruption issues. Although at the beginning Wrong's writing style dips into a maddening form of purple prose, she soon rights herself. She's at her best when explaining issues rather than engaging in cinematic story telling; and she has an excellent grasp of the issues, and of the human costs of the issues that comes through clearly.

The book suffers where Wrong makes herself a subject, with self-conscious self importance of her own role in what she sees as a Le Carre novel. What is unusual about the Githongo story is both that Githongo went public and that somebody (namely the donor community) cared. But the financing of politics (as well as personal consumption) through procurement fraud in the security and military sector is absolutely everyday stuff in low income countries (and even some countries that are not low income). People trip over it, talk about it, write about it, sometimes audit it and very occasionally are killed over it -- usually without feeling the need to consult Le Carre for advice. Fortunately there is not too much of this.

An argument of her book is that John Githongo, who is reportedly intelligent, and who was the head of Transparency International in Nairobi before working for Kibaki and whose father did bookkeeping and presumably money laundering for the Moi regime, entered the Kibaki government with an incredible amount of wide-eyed naivete. Without knowing any of the principals personally, however, I always found it difficult to believe that Githongo had managed to reach maturity with absolutely no idea of how politics is financed in his country -- or indeed in any low-income country -- and what that implies for the commitment to the fight against corruption for the head of an incumbent political party and his Minister of Finance. It should be noted that Wrong is a personal friend of Githongo, who apparently gave her substantial material for this book. I wonder if Wrong is a little too close to her story to ask the hard questions.

Both in this book and in her last, Wrong finds fault with any compromise with existing African political machines. Such compromise, she argues, implies that Africans are not worthy of good government or are incapable of it. But patronage politics are not simply the result of bad people in government -- there are social forces that drive it -- which is why it is relatively impervious to a change of administration. More, it is obviously not exclusively African, so it is hard to read an insult to Africans in a recognition of the resilient nature of patronage politics.

The naive "bad people" theory of government too often informs the actions of Western donors, who like Diogenes spend their time looking for honest champions with whom they can entrust their money. It also drives American foreign policy, as Americans spend time lopping off the heads of foreign governments. But political machines are Hydra-headed. As one wag said in Panama about Noriega, "They took Ali Baba and they left us the forty thieves." We would all be better off if we understood that political machines take time to change, and asked instead how reformers can address the social drivers that create them, and how the West can best deal with political machines where we find them. Neither the old Cold War shrug, nor indignant and self-righteous total repudiation are likely to be useful strategies.

A wake up call for the west
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.

Introductory to Michela Wrong's books
The two Amazon reviews for her new book are complimentary but weighty for someone who is merely interested in whether to pick up her book or not. If you have read her previous two, then my answer is a resounding YES! In this book she explores the events that caused current Kenyan President Kibaki's aide John Githongo to expose the corruption in their government. She also explores the aftermath of his whistle-blowing, including the riots occurring late 2007 after Kibaki was sworn in for a second term.
It is the combination of Wrong's veteran journalist chops and her desire to tell stories of the scary truth beyond any fictional thriller that takes what has happened recently in Kenya from a lurid, sensational story to a nuanced, thoughtful and ultimately heartbreaking story with no easy answers.
I read Michela Wrong's books because they encourage me to think about a world outside of the one I live in.