When ally passed on a threat to Githongo

Justice Aaron Ringera features in a controversial book that details intrigues that led to the resignation of Governance PS John Githongo. Author Michela Wrong even claims that Mr Ringera pass on a threat to Mr Githongo if he continued to pursue the Anglo Leasing scandal.

According to Ms Wrong, the author of It’s Our Turn to Eat, after a meeting to discuss the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc’s) governance strategy, the two stayed behind for a private chat. She notes that Mr Githongo “ruefully” confessed to the colleague whose career he had done so much to further that he had realised State House only wanted him to go through the “motions” of his job.

“Mine is the shock of a personal realisation,” Mr Githongo is said to have told Mr Ringera. Ms Wrong then writes that Mr Ringera nodded in agreement, saying that Mr Githongo could not afford to make any move as he would risk being killed.

According to the author, Mr Githongo joked that the message was “that’s far enough”. “Ringera nodded, and added a diabolical twist: ‘If you wanted to resign and go today, that’s when they would kill you.’ It was the classic predicament of those who climb onto the merry-go-round of power, only to find themselves whizzing around so fast they cannot jump off,” the book reads.

The book goes on to say that it was Mr Githongo who helped ensure that the directorship of the new institution, which he eventually hoped to see given prosecution powers, went to Justice Aaron Ringera, whom he had befriended during his time at TI-Kenya on a long-haul flight to a World Bank meeting.

It notes that he was convinced that the former solicitor-general was the perfect candidate for the job, he went in person to lobby the various political party leaders to support the appointment. “‘I put my reputation on the line, without hesitation or equivocation. I had complete faith in Ringera.’ John was also partly responsible for the KACC director being granted one of Kenya’s most generous civil service pay awards.

The bigger the salary, the easier it would be for the holder of this key institution to resist temptation, he told the sceptics,” the book continues. Ms Wrong creates the impression that it was Mr Ringera who led Mr Githongo to realising that he was not going anywhere in his quest to fight corruption. She says that the conversation where he was warned of death was the “bleakest moments of John’s life.”

“The man who should have been his greatest ally (Mr Ringera) had just passed on a death threat. ‘I felt lonely, very lonely. I realised at that moment that I had no more allies within government. In just one and a half years, it had come to this’,” the book reads. It goes on to narrate an incident that occurred during a trip where Mr Githongo and Mr Ringera were supposed to be tracking Kroll’s progress on Goldenberg.

It says that in London during what the book referes to as “a last tête-à-tête” Mr Githongo prepared Mr Ringera for his resignation and exile. “And Ringera, a handsome, white-haired veteran who resembled everyone’s favourite uncle, revealed the steel beneath the velvet. Kenyan intelligence would ‘put something in your tea’ if John went public with what he knew,” Ms Wrong writes on.

Made a deal

The two are said to have made a deal that he would stay quiet and he would not be harmed. Ms Wrong writes that Mr Ringera said he would “take that message back to the kiama — he meant himself, Muthaura, Murungaru, Mwiraria and Kiraitu — and a truce would be called.”

The book says that when the former whistle blower failed to get a response on the Anglo Leasing scandal, he sent a copy of the dossier to Justice Ringera, asking to be invited to Kenya. “It can’t have surprised him when the head of the KACC, the man who had helpfully passed on threats to his life, failed to respond,” Ms Wrong writes.

The book claims that as the story on the scandal was about to break in January 2006 — almost a year after he had gone into exile, Mr Githongo’s planned scoop was sabotaged. “Aware that the story was about to break, Justice Ringera did his best to neutralise its impact by cannily announcing an impressive-sounding blitz of Anglo Leasing-related interrogations,” reads the book.