The book reads like a script for a Hollywood thriller, but one with content.
It's Our Turn to Eat is the story of Kenyan whistle blower
John Githongo, appointed Kenya's anti corruption chief when a new regime came into power in 2002 that finally was to make a clean sweep. Instead the idealist Githongo discovers the contrary: corruption under the new regime is just as rampant as under the old. A well documented book that also poses critical questions about the Western reactions - or rather, the lack of it - to the scandals that lead to the highest regions of power, including president Kibaki. In an
interview author
Michela Wrong describes it as a 'naive and wishful thinking donor community which desperately wanted to start lending money again... and didn't want to see the evidence (of corruption, FvZ).' Only one British High Commissioner in Nairobi dares to 'throw up the truth over the shoes of the establisment'. He became the heroe of the Kenyan in the street but a pariah in diplomatic circles. That the book cannot be sold in Kenya says enough about its explosive content.
Michela Wrong, It's Our Turn to Eat (Fourth Estate, 2009)
The book reads like a script for a Hollywood thriller, but one with content. It's Our Turn to Eat is the story of Kenyan whistle blower John Githongo, appointed Kenya's anti corruption chief when a new regime came into power in 2002 that finally was to make a clean sweep. Instead the idealist Githongo discovers the contrary: corruption under the new regime is just as rampant as under the old. A well documented book that also poses critical questions about the Western reactions - or rather, the lack of it - to the scandals that lead to the highest regions of power, including president Kibaki. In an interview author Michela Wrong describes it as a 'naive and wishful thinking donor community which desperately wanted to start lending money again... and didn't want to see the evidence (of corruption, FvZ).' Only one British High Commissioner in Nairobi dares to 'throw up the truth over the shoes of the establisment'. He became the heroe of the Kenyan in the street but a pariah in diplomatic circles. That the book cannot be sold in Kenya says enough about its explosive content.
