It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower

This book was a joy! I enjoyed the history lesson (the colonial period was particularly sad because of the evil in man's hearts). If you want to know why a lot of Africa's presidents act the way they do, read this book. It's sad that the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree in a lot of cases. Many of the African presidents we consider corrupt and inept are imitating behaviors and mindsets they saw in "white" colonial overlords. The continent has suffered and continues to suffer because of injustice, greed and lack imagination & love. The hero of the story is John Githongo. He's imperfect but in the face of government wrongdoing he became the face of integrity. He saw tribalism's limits and thought more on a nationally level; right was right and wrong was wrong. Tribalism is detrimental to Africa as racism is detrimental to America. I definitely recommend it, though it could negatively cloud your judgment of NGOs and their government partners. One last thing: As I read this book I realized this: things are the way they are because someone wanted it to be that way. There are no mistakes, or loopholes.

Simply Superb ! I'm a Kenyan and i can personally attest to the devastating effects of grand pilferage of public resources as clearly brought out in this masterpiece.The author clearly took her time researching on cold facts that are easily verifiable and locally relatable. What is utterly shocking is how coldly calculated,planned and organised these heists are.This book deserves to be studied by any serious Kenyan or anyone interested in knowing why Africa is " a scar on the conscience of the world ", in the words of former Britain Prime Minister Tony Blair. Corruption and negative ethnicity have and will continue to hold the Kenya and the entire continent hostage unless we the electorate rise up and elect leaders of prosperity and not leaders of poverty. Africa is so resourceful but unfortunately for one reason or another , we have allowed ourselves to be played time and time again by fraudsters we call our leaders who have continued pauperizing us since independence and continue to without a care in the world and when election time comes, they play a con game and make use of divide and rule stratagems and tactics based on useless ethnicity and tribalism to blind and deceive the electorate on the real truth that in Kenya it is really is not a matter of " 42 or so warring tribes" but a seemingly underground perpetual power struggle by a minuscule clique of unscrupulous and ruthless power brokers battling it out to grab as much public resources as possible when in the highest office of the land.The only real tribes are the poor and rich period ! I thank God for the internet otherwise this book would not have seen the light of day especially in my country Kenya. Kudos Michela !

This book is mostly about John Githongo, an idealistic man who is given the job of rooting out corruption in Kenya following the 2002 elections. Since the end of colonial rule only two men had held the Presidency of Kenya: Kenyetta and Moi. During their corrupt regimes tribal loyalties had led to corruption, to the ruling class enriching themselves at the cost of their country. The NARC regime just elected to office promised to step away from the past; under President Kibaki Kenya would move away from the old ways.Or would it? Githongo, personally appointed by Kibaki, found corruption and took steps to deal with it. However, he discovered that corruption went all the way to the top levels of the government. The story of how John Githongo uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud and lived to tell about it is fascinating. Even more eye-opening was the way in which foreign aid was handed to Kenya despite the corruption. This is a long-term problem: so long as foreign aid props up these regimes they will continue to exist, skimming off American and European tax money so that the Minister of the Interior can buy a gold-plated Mercedes Benz and Presidents-for-Life can import Saville Row suits, French champagne and Russian caviar.The only issue I had with this book but was an attempt to smear George W. Bush as being somehow responsible for corruption in Kenya when the book itself discusses steps taken by members of his administration to hold the government accountable. I'm sure it made this book trendy when it came out, but now just makes it look silly.

Michaela has an excellent writing style which made the situations and people very real. There are many excellent reviews of this book, the reviewers adding their comments to the politics behind Kenya's decline into a poverty ridden dictatorship. The book was printed in 2009 some 46 years after independence. It took the white settlers fifty years to build a thriving country. The Wabenzi took over and in less than 40 years we have a country on its knees.Shocked to read about the main municipal food market in the centre of Nairobi over run by rats and filth. My memory is of a pristine market selling fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. Supervised by a white market master and a team of cleaners. The Indian flower sellers in the entrance, always had wonderful displays of colour, the fragrance was heavenly. Tourists took photos . Well the image of the market from pristine to rat infested dump epitomises modern day Kenya. Obviously no-one in the Nairobi City Council from the Mayor down could be bothered with the health implications, the tourists or the city slum image. Recommend this book to anyone who wonders what happened to Kenya post independence.You might say

John Githongo's story is that of a moral giant overwhelmed by moral pygmies. He started out against the background of high hopes. His boss, Mwai Kibaki, had defeated Daniel Arap Moi, in the Kenyan 2002 presidential election. Moi's rule had been blighted by despotism and corruption. His successor declared war against graft Githongo was the man he chose to wage it.A few years' later, Githongo turned up out of the blue at the author's flat. He had fled the country, fearing for his life. The man who had appointed him to head the war on corruption had turned against him; he was persona non grata. He had rocked too many boats. His crime was not just he exposed the promises of the new incumbent as hollow. He had turned against his own tribe in questioning their right to 'eat' – to milk the state for the benefit of the tribe, at the expense of everyone else. For this, he was considered a traitor by his own group. Githongo's rise and fall encapsulates, in the story of one man's battle against corruption, the failure of post-independence Kenya to build a state that serves the interests of all its people, and not just those who happen to hold office. The hold of tribalism seems impossible to break.Wrong is critical of outside powers, like Britain, ignoring these realities, and handing out aid to the new incumbents, without asking too many questions about where it was ending up. In the mid-2000s, Kenya was enjoying robust growth figures. The hope was that the wealth would trickle down and that a rising tide would lift all boats. The bloody aftermath of the 2007 elections confounded such hopes. Endemic corruption had seen the proceeds of growth flow to Kibaki's Kikuyu, especially their stronghold of central Kenya, while other regions languished. Corruption and the blatantly unfair allocation of resources exacerbated and compounded ethnic antagonisms, boiling over in the aftermath of the rigged 2007 election. At one point, the spiral of violence seemed to threaten a Rwandan-style conflagration.Though the story is well-told, it leaves out any explanation as to why tribalism is so tenacious, other than the now-hackneyed explanation that it is a legacy of colonialism, which fails to explain its persistence in the absence of colonialists. Tanzania's rulers have done much more than Kenya's did to overcome the inherited colonial divisions of tribalism but it does not score much better in corruption indices or other measures of human progress. Further, corruption, deplorable as it is, does not necessarily stymie development, as examples in East and South East Asia show. That does not mean that it is something to be indulged or tolerated. The less corrupt a country's institutions are, the better it does. It just means the presence of corruption does not not rule out the possibility of socio-economic progress. Still, Kenya is not South Korea and I am probably not comparing like with like.Githongo returned to Kenya and carries on his work. The country's corruption indices have enjoyed modest improvements, albeit from very low levels. We once had to rely on moral giants like him to win the sorts of things we take for granted today, in the UK. In our country, we expect that a Conservative government will provide asphalted roads and decent health services to parts of the country that did not vote for it – like Scotland. Kenya's people are still long way from enjoying what we take for granted: the fair allocation of public goods, that they are entitled to enjoy, regardless of which way they voted. Read this book and be grateful.

In the early `90's I used to travel frequently on business to Africa - but primarily West Africa and usually Nigeria. I enjoyed it (mostly) and learned a great deal and met some wonderful people - but I did find it extraordinarily stressful. It was always a relief and relaxation to make a trip to Kenya. Warm, friendly, educated people living in a truly beautiful country. I only had the most superficial view/experience of it but it did seem to me to be a largely successful country which sat outside the stereotype of African countries.I thoroughly enjoyed both of Michaela Wrong's early books - particularly the second about Eritrea and so was looking forward to this. It is a painful, shocking and illuminating read. Other reviewers here have commented well on the contents. What struck me by the end was the complicity of the British in a thoroughly corrupt political process - with a few notable exceptions such as Sir Edward Clay - and, indeed, worsening it through the totally mistaken implementation of DfID policies under Hilary Benn. When I read those splendid statements about our government's commitment to relieving poverty and strengthening democracy in Africa - I had no idea of the reality on the ground.I thoroughly recommend this book - it should be read by every government minister - past, present and future - and by anyone interested in Africa.

A country blessed with a myriad of natural and cultural landscapes, wildlife and amazing people. However Kenya is also a country cursed by corrupt systems brought on by the greed of politicians and businesses looking to line their own pockets at the expense of everyone and everything else. This book is an interesting insight in to what really goes on behind closed doors, the manipulation of systems and the level of nepotism that exists, which continues to push the divide of wealth further and wider apart. From a personal stance having grown up in Africa and been oblivious to things like politics as a child, it has certainly been a revelation to learn of some of the things 'our leaders' were capable of, and just how far they will go to turn their backs on the very people who rely on (or even elect), them.

Michela Wrong clearly loves Africa and desperately wants it to learn to stop destroying itself. But her book looks to the way that the overarching tribal system comes to try and destroy the people who step out of line to apply what we would see as acceptable standards.John Githongo is charged with fighting the endemic Kenyan corruption but finds himself surrounded by it - driven by a tribal drum that gives the Kikuyu rulers the perceived right to 'eat' (a euphemism for 'help yourself')as much as they want. His realisation of this and his fight back are the 'story' of this book. But what is at its core is the way that the tribalism and its weak acceptance by donor governments builds up a pressure that inevitably blows at the 2008 elections destroying before it all semblance of non-tribal civilisation that had been slowly building over the years.While this story is a detailed analysis of tribal Kikuyu kleptocracy in Kenya it is only the easily visible surface of a pan-african illness. Read Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by Jacob Stearns and any of the books on the Rwandan crisis and you realise that the tribal malaise stalks all Africa - probably including the Arab states bordering the Mediterranean - and as a donor country we are still feeding it. Our recent 2012 donations to Rwanda even while their Tutsi backed army - commanded by indicted War Lords - is marching again through the Congo continues to feed the beast.The only saving grace of the tribal problem in Kenya is that it 'only' killed thousands - not the millions killed in the Congo and Rwanda.Is there any way forward. Maybe the only way is to stop donating toward any single tribe government - but that may mean we stop donating to Africa at all!!!Any other suggestions?

This book took me at least three months to read. It is a hard read as it opens the mirror and projects what politics , aid and graft fighting are failing to do for Africa.The quote below sums it all.A country's economic prospects cannot be disentangled from its politics.A hard read. A compulsory dose.

I think it's important that John Githongo's story was told. He is obviously a principled and brave person and I think that Michela Wrong did a good job telling it. However I have to admit that I didn't enjoy this book as much as Michela Wrong's earlier books on the Congo and Eritrea. I think this purely came down to the subject matter. Frankly political corruption in Africa or anywhere else in the world for that matter is hardly a startling revelation. Nor is politicians saying one thing publicly and then privately doing the polar opposite anything new either. Overall though I enjoyed reading the book and would recommend it.

This book was one I chose to read as part of my Postgrad. Certificate in Public Health - international development module (compulsory). I wasn't looking forward to the course or reading the book, however have found both to be extremely interesting. This book is a great read and I quite forgot to critique it as I was reading. It about governmental corruption, an individuals attempt to expose the corrupt and about the history of Africa and the people who live there. Extremely well written, informative and thought provoking.

This is the first of Michela Wrong's books that I have read and I enjoyed it immensely. I have never been to Kenya (although my father was born in Nairobi en route to India) but I could almost smell the trash in Kibera slum and touch the grandiose hardwood furniture in State House just from reading it. Michela's earthy prose certainly shows that it's not one big game park but a modern African country grappling with the transition from a largely agrarian Shamba economy to a bustling,commercial hub underwritten by aid flows. Change of that sort is difficult thing to manage and all to often the promised improvements of development never actually occur for many people. Well researched, warmly if rather dramatically written, it would have been an interesting book in my view even if it wasn't about John Kithongo. I also think that it brings a welcome and not very flattering spotlight to bear on the opaque world of Dfid, the World Bank and their methods and procedures.

I found this book hard work to read, but a I am glad I did. As someone currently living in Kenya, I found it very interesting and essential in providing contextual information to help me to understand the corruption in society and the violence following the 2007 elections. It is a very thorough work, although I felt there was perhaps too much background information provided (in minute detail) about the whistleblower and his life.

Micheal Wrong is a star. It is little wonder that this book has been "unofficially banned" in Kenya beacuse it is raw and honest in its appraisal of much that is happening there. For those who believe that Africa is just a basket case that is undeserving of our help, this book may help you understand who created the basket and how our government continues to help keep a corrupt regime in place. But then those who fiddle thousands in expenses hardly stand ready to act as a role model to lead others out of corruption.

I was recommended this book by a friend and I really didn't realise what is was about so I was a bit daunted to see it is quite political. (Oh no a bit boring then). I was suprised to find it very readable and interesting and it certainly opened my eyes to the problems of Africa and Kenya in particular, now I completely understand why my friend reccomended it. I asked the question ' why is Kenya so poor and destitute when it was a thriving country in the late 50's'. The answers are all in the book and very interesting it is too, and its not all their fault.

For anyone who wants to understand how Kenya works politically read this book. Wrong has used Githongo, the corruption whistle blower, to build a highly intelligent and insightful profile of politics and tribalism in modern Kenya. The book is hard hitting but one senses no personal agenda, no desire to create a martyr to support a personal cause or make a statement. The fact is Kenya's Achilles heel is corruption and it is hard to see how it will ever be dealt with. This book makes this depressing point very clearly. And for purists of good writing the book is superbly constructed and written in lean, muscular prose that perfectly suits the subject matter.

Great read, this book was banned in my country. Good insight, however, I gor a feeling some facts are hidden.

Goid book