It's Our Turn to Eat

by Michela Wrong

  It was about this time that John systematically stepped up a practice he had initiated the year before. This activity would later trigger his critics’ most vitriolic abuse and leave even otherwise sympathetic Kenyans shaking their heads: he began secretly taping conversations with his colleagues. Why did he enter into what he would subsequently acknowledge was ‘morally disastrous territory, the worst form of betrayal, the most discomfiting thing I’ve done in my entire life’? Initially–how ironic this would come to seem–it was simply in order to be able to prove his bona fides to the boss. In the first year of his tenure, the most contentious material he heard came from businessmen passing through his office. Without any paperwork to prove his claims, he realised that if he relayed these gobbets of information to the president, only for those who had provided them to think better of their frankness, he could be made to look either a villain or a fool. The systematic taping would prevent him from being stitched up in front of the president. Things said in John’s presence could not later be denied. He had told the Mzee what he was doing from the start, leaving it to Kibaki to decide whether to pass that information on to other State House players. The president had reacted in his usual laid-back fashion. ‘He just laughed.’

  But as the Anglo Leasing scandal began to unfold, the motives behind John’s taping subtly changed. It was no longer merely a question of convincing his employer, but of justifying himself before history. As the disconcerting admissions piled up and his suspicions about his closest colleagues mounted, the cold realisation of just how much he stood to lose–reputation, credibility, employability–dawned. Listening to the Goldenberg hearings he had helped engineer, John had imbibed a pertinent lesson: throughout Kenyan history, civil servants had always served as scapegoats, fall guys, when high-profile financial scandals came to light. The elected politicians who issued the orders had always walked free, the size of their ethnic constituencies, in a world of political alliances, coating them in Teflon. To his own ears, the hints that were now being dropped were so shocking in their implications no sane person, he felt sure, would believe him if they did not hear the words for themselves. He would be mocked as a paranoid fantasist, a Walter Mitty character whose mental instability had, sadly, not been spotted by his recruiters. The recordings–his ‘wires’, as he called them–were all that stood between him and ignominy. ‘By 2004 I knew the wires would be the only thing to save me.’

  If he found what he was doing repugnant, there was a sense in which he was using what small and idiosyncratic weapons he had to combat vastly superior forces. The Mount Kenya Mafia might have a huge network of civil servants, intelligence agents, generals and police chiefs to do their bidding, but there were areas in which they were surprisingly weak. The kind of man who gets nerdish pleasure from keeping up with the latest computer software, music gadgetry and mobile phone special features, John had no trouble working out how to download digitalised sound, set a tape recorder onto time-delay voice-activation or encrypt his internet traffic to shield it from prying eyes. Many of those he was dealing with belonged to a generation of technology-allergic old-schoolers who prided themselves on barely being able to type–that was a secretary’s job–hardly grasped the concept of voicemail and stared at their mobile phones in bemusement when they bleeped. ‘I had an advantage. I’m a technology geek and these were guys who had trouble sending an SMS.’

  There was another side of John to which the taping appealed. Since his schooldays, he had been recording his own life with a scientific thoroughness more typical of a zoologist than a diarist. He had taken to heart Socrates’ maxim that the unexamined life is not worth living. The wires were just another ingredient in the process of existential reckoning being conducted by this accountant’s son. Who, in his mind, would eventually tot up the pluses and minuses and come up with a definitive balance at the end of his turbulent life story? God? John himself? The Kenyan public? Future historians? There was no clear answer, but that didn’t make him feel any less compelled to log and note. Capturing events on paper and on tape was the one way he could impose order on the chaos of events swirling around him. Just as it was the old timers’ misfortune to be dealing with a technogeek, it was also their bad luck–in a political world which relied for its protection on word-of-mouth instructions, whispered consultations and the absence of a paper trail–to have recruited a man who felt compelled to record every daily incident for posterity.

  What happened next revealed the sensitivity of the Anglo Leasing affair. In the early hours of the morning, the phone would suddenly ring at John’s home. When he lifted the receiver, an anonymous voice, growling in Kiswahili, would warn him his life was in danger, promise he would soon see who he was dealing with, and that he would regret what he had done, bastard, cheat and liar that he was. At other times there would be nothing but a brooding silence on the end of the line. And when John hung up, the same thing would happen again–call, answer, silence, call, answer, silence. Their very relentlessness provided a clue as to who lay behind the calls. It bore all the hallmarks of a scare-off operation by Kenyan intelligence.

  He did not mention these calls to Kibaki. It came with the territory, he reasoned–no point going whining to the boss. But within days, a campaign of systematic disinformation was being piled onto the death threats. The aim was to sully John’s reputation to the point where his professional actions would have no public credibility. The shadowy figures who had set themselves the task of smearing him chose a classic route. John might have a girlfriend of four years’ standing, the loyal Mary Muthumbi, but he was that rarest of creatures: a thirty-nine-year-old African bachelor. Why exactly was he still unmarried and childless at what, by Kenya’s standards, counted as a strangely advanced age? With a bit of imagination, those simple omissions could be transformed into out-and-out perversion.

  The trick of the successful smear campaign is to include just enough fact–real nails on which to hang a work of bold invention–to persuade an audience that ‘there must be something in it’. St Mary’s, John’s old school, had, in its small way, something of a gay reputation. As Alfred Getonga and Jimmy Wanjigi could not help but be aware–they were alumni, after all–rumours had swirled around the Catholic priests teaching there. Voilà! The weapon presented itself. Editing out Mary’s role in John’s life–everyone knows, after all, that a girlfriend or wife’s existence proves nothing when it comes to these perverts– Nairobi’s gutter press unleashed a barrage of scurrilous stories. One of John Githongo’s lovers, it was said, was a male journalist at the Nation. The couple lived together as man and wife. Another supposed boyfriend, a white rally driver, had committed suicide when John broke off the relationship, driving out to Nairobi’s National Park, hooking a hosepipe up to his car’s exhaust and gassing himself. The underpaid reporters on Nairobi’s gossip sheets, always vulnerable to the proffered brown envelope full of cash, wrote breathlessly of clandestine homosexual trysts, of hired prostitutes–this time heterosexual–and hinted at mini-orgies organised by a hitherto-unknown group called the Royal Gay Society, the baroque ‘royal’ ingredient no doubt intended to whip up anti-imperial sentiment. An anonymous leaflet circulated parliament, making similar claims.

  Only partially aware of what was going on, members of John’s own team reacted to the slurs with hilarity. ‘Oh, the gay thing was just hysterical,’ guffaws Lisa Karanja. ‘After he showed me the cuttings, I decided to make him a crest, of a family shield with two pink flamingos and the initials RGS–for Royal Gay Society–on it.’

  The claims barely raised an eyebrow among the foreign diplomats, journalists and aid officials who worked in Kenya. This community of Western sophisticates wouldn’t have minded if John had been a feather-boa-wearing transvestite in his free time, so long as he wasn’t on the take during professional hours. But John’s enemies knew their audience. In much of Africa, ‘homophobia’ is a meaningless term, given the depth of public hostility to homosexuality. The practice is illegal in Kenya, and for a vast swathe
of the prudish public it represents the ultimate of depravities, a vice imported from the effete West to corrupt manly African youth. Kenyans will ask you, pop-eyed with disgust, in the incredulous tone of voice they would adopt towards a report claiming goats had the vote in California: ‘Is it true that in your culture homosexual people can marry one other?’ The gay barb hit home, leaving an indelible stain, just as its authors had known it would.

  Aware that friends and family were reading the smears, John cringed, but there was nothing he could do. As a permanent secretary, he’d automatically been assigned a bodyguard, but it had been a relaxed arrangement, with his minder clocking off at the weekend. The man who looked so much like a bouncer himself now asked State House for extra protection, and was assigned two bodyguards who accompanied him everywhere. So free hitherto, he now had constant chaperons.

  A whispering campaign had started in State House, with John–known to be on good terms with journalists–widely blamed for leaked stories appearing in the Kenyan press. His colleagues’ hostility had become evident. But perhaps it was worth it, for his efforts seemed to be paying off. On 6 May, Chris Murungaru announced in parliament that the government had cancelled the Anglo Leasing contract, pending inquiries. A week later, when the KACC and the controller and auditor general confirmed in separate reports that Kenya had fallen victim to a gigantic attempted fraud, president Kibaki agreed without hesitation to John’s recommendation–as he handed over his final report on the affair–that the various suspect officials be sacked. ‘OK, that’s it!’ he told him. This, John felt with a glow of pride and relief, was what it was to be backed by your head of state: all became straightforward and clear. As John took his leave, the president asked him to summon Francis Muthaura, head of the civil service, to State House–presumably in order to inform him of the looming staff changes.

  And then things got strange. Strange enough to make one wonder what actually took place between the president and his head of civil service once John left the room. Later that same evening, a jubilant Muthaura rang John to tell him that Anglo Leasing had been in touch, promising to refund the government’s 91-million-shilling downpayment. He announced this with the air of someone who had consigned a troublesome problem to history. How a non-existent company could suddenly find itself a voice, and why that phantom entity should then choose to call the head of the civil service rather than the contract’s signatories, remained unclear. Sure enough, the Central Bank confirmed the refund had gone through. A few days later, on 17 May, Joseph Magari and Sylvester Mwaliko, permanent secretaries at the finance and home affairs ministries respectively, were suspended, furiously protesting their innocence. Along with them went Wilson Sitonik, head of the department vetting all computer procurement for the government.

  It was progress of a sort, but John quickly realised that while he considered these preliminary steps in the right direction, those around him regarded them as sops with which to silence an increasingly irritating, overzealous colleague. The money had been returned, end of story. Kiraitu, who had once been so keen to see heads roll, wandered into John’s office unannounced, looking distracted, and expressed the hope that the investigations would end with the Anglo Leasing refund. People, said the justice minister, were beginning to wonder if John appreciated the political costs of his work. That same day, a palpably nervous Mwiraria popped by to warn John that Jimmy Wanjigi had sworn to kill him–which raised the obvious question of how the finance minister knew this. But John could not ease up. He was now receiving reports of a second suspect Anglo Leasing deal, this time for the notional provision of a state-of-the-art police forensic laboratory. His informants were telling him of other dodgy security contracts, too, to which Anglo Leasing’s name was not attached. Like Hercules, he had cut off one of the hydra’s heads, only to find a host sprouting in its stead.

  To those watching John, it must have been clear that the death threats and smears had failed: his determination to pursue Anglo Leasing had not dimmed. A new approach was needed. On 20 May 2004 he was summoned to the justice minister’s office. ‘The general message,’ he told John, was: ‘Tell Githongo to go a bit slow.’ When John’s response was uncompromising, Kiraitu revealed his hand. Opening a drawer, he pulled out a file he said had been given to him by a Mr A.H. Malik. That name was familiar–Malik was a Nairobi lawyer who had loaned John’s father money in the 1990s, when Joe Githongo planned to develop a piece of land on the outskirts of the city. It was one of his father’s worst business moves: he had been unable to repay the loan, Malik had gone to court, the court had found against Joe, and the dispute festered on. What had any of this to do with John? The money loaned to his father, Kiraitu claimed, had not come from Malik at all, but had originated with Anura Perera, the Cypriot businessman behind the suspect frigate deal, the kind friend who had paid Kibaki’s London hospital bill. There seemed no getting away from this generous individual. So John’s father was in Perera’s debt, but Perera, Kiraitu said, would be happy to settle the dispute amicably so long as John agreed to turn off the heat.

  John sat blinking, struggling to digest the implications of this conversation. The first thing that astonished him was the extent and organisation of the plotting against him. He could only guess what measures Perera had taken to win ownership of the Malik loan, for he didn’t believe for an instant that his father had originally, without realising it, borrowed from Perera. The second was the clumping crudeness of the overture. The man entrusted with Kenyan justice, who he had regarded until now as an ally in his war on graft, had just tried to blackmail him. Having failed to sway John with threats, smears and appeals, the establishment had resorted to the most cowardly of routes–trying to get at him via his father. He struggled to conceal his anger and disgust. ‘Let the real principal show himself,’ he told Kiraitu curtly, ‘and I’ll deal with him directly.’

  One of the problems John was experiencing was the rush of events, so fast and furious he barely had time to analyse them. He received a call from a director in Kenyan intelligence. The man sounded agitated, but there was something contrived in his manner. His colleagues, he said, had hatched a scheme to discredit John. Three prostitutes–two women and one man–had been paid to demonstrate outside police headquarters claiming to have had sex with John and been poorly treated. The director said he was ‘working very hard’ on John’s behalf to contain the situation. Alarmed, John sent a staffer to meet the prostitutes and photocopy their IDs, so that he could find out more about these supposed witnesses. Then he paused, thought again, and let the matter drop. Treating the matter seriously, he realised, would be to play his harassers’ psychological game. This was a distraction, meant to divert his attention from Anglo Leasing. He would not give his enemies that satisfaction.

  John’s first appearance before parliament’s Public Accounts Committee to be questioned by MPs on Anglo Leasing almost felt like a relief. He was determined not to lie on the administration’s behalf, and it gave him a chance to offload some of what he knew. But the relentless pressure was having an impact. He felt stressed, worn out. Even on nights when no one called to make anonymous death threats, he slept fitfully, waking repeatedly. He kept the details of what was going on to himself. Even if the Official Secrets Act hadn’t barred government officials from discussing such matters with friends and family, he knew better than to expose his loved ones to the kind of threats he was experiencing. So toxic was the information he was gleaning, he felt he could not share it even with his staff. ‘He wouldn’t lie,’ remembers Lisa Karanja. ‘He’d tell you a lot was going on. But he wouldn’t go into the detail.’ She noticed his habit of repeating himself, as his mind, terrier-like, worked away obsessively at themes that niggled him. It was a sure sign of exhaustion.

  When no one else shares one’s perception of reality, only the madman believes he is compos mentis. From his ministerial colleagues to the head of the civil service, virtually everyone was telling John his zeal in pursuing Anglo Leasing was misplaced. For a mome
nt, he wavered. Who was he to insist that it was, on the contrary, the only possible course of action? In something approaching despair, he texted Kiraitu to tell him he was easing off, as requested. ‘That’s good to hear,’ Kiraitu texted back. ‘Now life can continue.’

  Studying that message, something in John jibbed. No, he would not oblige them all by going quietly. He would press on, he would continue the secret taping, but he must become more cunning. Let the Mount Kenya Mafia–he was confident Kiraitu would pass his message on to the rest of the group–believe he had surrendered. In public, he would adopt a softly-softly approach, winning some respite from the incessant sniping. The Big Man was not finished yet. In private, via his informant network, he would pursue Anglo Leasing with as much vigour as the need for secrecy allowed. And he would continue his clandestine taping.

  On 2 June 2004, long after everyone else had gone home, Mwiraria, Kiraitu and John gathered in the finance minister’s office to survey recent events. After the weeks of tension, mutual irritation and paralysing suspicion, it felt as though a tightened spring had suddenly been released. This was the calm that comes with trust, and the joint understanding that a serious crisis has been narrowly averted by dint of pulling together. At precisely this moment of assumed complicity, John’s hidden tape recorder chose to start relaying its contents to the world at large.

  He scrambled for the door, and returned expecting the worst. But fate was kind. The atmosphere in Mwiraria’s office seemed unchanged. Kiraitu, in particular, was in meditative, confessional mood, speaking more freely than he had since the scandal broke because, John sensed, he was convinced the anti-corruption czar had seen the error of his ways. ‘He admitted that he had not realised how high up and just how intricately involved members of our own administration were,’ John wrote later that night in his little black book. He had to call on all his skills as an actor to conceal his dismay at what the justice minister said next. It was confirmation of a truth John had really, in his heart, known all along but had not wanted to confront. ‘Anglo Leasing,’ Kiraitu ruefully acknowledged, ‘is us.’