Githongo was given ‘no choice

• Advice to turn down State position was too late; decision was made in his absence

I had known John Githongo since moving to Nairobi in the mid-1990s, when he was an up-and-coming columnist and I was the Financial Times’s Africa correspondent.

John, who wrote a think piece for the EastAfrican, a business weekly owned by the Aga Khan’s Nation Media Group, had studied abroad, had travelled his own continent and had a sound grasp of geopolitics.

His vision was sophisticated, his instincts compassionate, and he had the good journalist’s ability, using colourful anecdote to make complex arguments accessible to the ordinary reader.

I began quoting John in my articles. Other Western journalists were also discovering him.

Soon the name ‘John Githongo’ was cropping up in more and more media stories as a pundit. Then he’d left journalism to revive the local branch of Transparency International, an organisation established by his own father and a group of likeminded businessmen disillusioned with Moi.

He had found the perfect platform from which to hold a morally bankrupt government to account.

While working at TI, John was also in discreet contact with the Kibaki team. He’d kept that side of things quiet, for the organisation was officially neutral, and had to be seen to remain above the political fray. But when Kibaki’s aides approached, asking for concrete suggestions on how to build the Opposition’s anti-corruption strategy, he could hardly refuse.

In the wake of the 2002 inauguration I tracked John down with a fellow journalist, keen to hear his thoughts. Halfway through the conversation, he revealed another reason why he was so distracted.

The Kenyan businessmen who sat on TI-Kenya’s board, old friends of both his father and Kibaki, had been in touch. ‘The wazee (old men) have put my name forward as someone to lead the fight against corruption.’ His laugh was half-embarrassed, half excited.

‘It looks as though the new team is going to offer me a post in government.’

My heart sank. I could see exactly why any new government would want John. No Kenyan could rival his reputation for muscular integrity, or enjoyed as much respect amongst the foreign donors everyone hoped would soon resume lending.
‘Don’t take it,’ I said. ‘You’ll lose your neutrality forever. Once you’ve crossed the line and become a player, you’ll never be able to go back.’

He listened, but my advice, it was clear, was being given too late. Effectively, he explained, he wasn’t being given a choice. The old guys – Joe Wanjui, former head of Unilever in Kenya; George Muhoho, head of the Kenya Airports Authority; and Harris Mule, former permanent secretary at the finance ministry – had done the deal in his absence, taking his acquiescence as read.

He’d gone round to Wanjui’s house and found the wazee drinking champagne, celebrating the forthcoming appointment. They had ribbed the young man over the fact that he probably didn’t even own a suit for his meeting with Kibaki, offering to lend him one. ‘They’d all cooked it up together. I drove away stunned. It was a great honour.’

In later years, he would think back over that day these men he had grown up with, who had known him when he was nothing but a small boy running around in shorts, had trussed him up and delivered him to his fate.

More than a pawn

But it was obvious that John was more than a pawn in a deal done by his father’s friends. He was the kind of man who believed it was up to every Kenyan – especially to someone blessed with his education and social advantages – to pull the country out of the mire. How could it be legitimate to criticise if, when you were explicitly asked to quit the sidelines and join the fray, you refused?

‘We discussed whether he should take it and concluded he didn’t have a choice, morally speaking,’ remembers economist David Ndii, who had worked alongside John at TI. ‘If he didn’t, he would always wonder if he could have made a difference.’
There was one last hoop to jump through before his appointment was confirmed – an interview with the man who had just become Kenya’s third president.

At that first encounter on 7 January 2003, watched over benevolently by the wazee, his three mentors, John listened, humbled, overawed, as Kibaki outlined his ambitions and expectations. But he plucked up just enough courage to make a remark that went to the heart of the matter.