Wrong has got it right

• Book by British author is an ironclad, tell-all story about corruption in Kenya
• There is much in the book to suggest that Githongo was perhaps more idealist than realist

In a way, Ms Wrong was lucky. When the apprehensive Githongo walked into her flat, so did the book. She was friends with him, she discloses early on in the book. She knew Nairobi and Kenya more intimately than perhaps any other country on the continent.

The book is two things. First, an invaluable insight into the ways in which corruption is done. Second, just as important, it is a portrait of Githongo as a symbol of the vulnerability of idealism, as a symbol of the moral strength; also a sobering disclosure of how brittle courage can be.

The blurb on the back of the book asking, “What is it about African society that makes corruption so hard to eradicate…” misses the point by asking an outsider’s execrable question — conflating “African society” with the state is silly, and perhaps whoever wrote the blurb should tell us about the Western Credit Crunch.

Told in 17 chapters, the book draws from the widest possible contexts to tell that tale. Ms Wrong has imbibed Kenya — ethnicity, class, youth, land and history woven together to give several perspectives into her subject.

She knows a good story and has the language to tell; it starts at breakneck speed, which reassuringly slows to become to become analytic, fulfilling and, finally, sobering.

It is telling that she starts with the image of Githongo fitfully concealing his legendary taping of conversations and ends with an epilogue on the life and death of another whistle-blower, David Munyakei. She gets very close to her subject.

Githongo is here turned inside out for our scrutiny. Was it naivety or idealism that drove him? Was he appointed PS because the Wazee thought him ethnically safe? Could the pull of tribe and class have been even more powerful than John suspected? What was crossing his mind as more and more meetings at State House were conducted in Gikuyu?

We know he was alarmed because he warned (from today this sounds prophetic) that this will “fix us”.

To the first question, there is much in the book itself to suggest that Githongo was perhaps more idealist than realist. To the second, there are suggestions that his class and background may have played a role for he repeatedly excused his acceptance of the PS’s job with the statement that the “old men” made him do it.

Was he unable to resist the pull of power? He worked a few metres from the President’s office and several times talked to him right in his bedroom. So, in a manner of speaking, there was no distance between him and the President. As these things go, people anxious to get to the President found they could beat the bureaucracy by passing information through Githongo.

The charmer

We are given Githongo the charmer – to whom “thrusting Kenyan yuppies”, “world weary Asian lawyers”, “doddery white leftovers”, “impassioned activists”, even “lowly taxi drivers” were drawn. But she also writes, “Like a woman of astounding beauty, John was always more loved and desired than he could ever love in return.”

For the reader, Githongo rises up as a King Lear of sorts. To power, he may have fatally thought he was close. But President Kibaki was the older man, experience his edge over the younger man.

Had Mr Kibaki not watched these same idealists rise and disintegrate right from the 1960s, when Githongo was only a toddler? Was he really able to read this circumspect veteran who gave tacit approvals and at times only laughed and never gave an opinion or was he too star-struck to do so?

It is hence telling when Ms Wrong writes that Githongo was a man “who did not recognise the gulf in perspective between himself and the president”. This is also an enigmatic statement – at least as this story is not yet finished – that will unravel in time, for while we have Githongo’s “perspective”, we cannot with certainty say what the president’s was at the time.