Githongo, Hero or Villain

John Githongo, the self exiled former PS in Ethics and governance jetted back into the country late Tuesday and even before his jet lag had worn off, he, in the company of his former associates in the activism world, gives controversial advice about economic amnesty to perpetrators of grand larceny. On this one, I agree with him since these crooks have learn't to take advantage of the loop holes in law using the looted wealth to hire the best lawyers to delay the cases for ever. Give them amnesty, but lets have what they looted back. A good example being the Grand Regency Hotel in which Kamlesh Patini engaged the government in unending legal tussles which had dragged on for over a decade with no end in sight.

To label Githongo as either a villain or hero, to be fair, really depends on the side of political divide one is inclined to. There are those who applauds him for his contribution in tagging Kibaki's regime as a hoard of corrupt scoundrels which justified the political backlash the regime has suffered this far. On the other hand there are those who view the man as a traitor who committed treasonable acts of playing to the gallery of neocolonialists at the expense of his motherland.

I would like to take a middle ground and objectively look at this matter without any political clouds in my vision. Yes, Githongo is a hero in as much as he prevented deals of the levels of Anglo leasing to get checked, for now and the future. However, his modus operandi in going about this, in my opinion was all wrong. First, as a senior government official you do not demean yourself by strapping yourself with a recorder and tape your seniors. I am sure there were other means at his disposal which he could have employed towards this end without degrading himself to a private sleuth. Secondly his claims of fear for his life, and hence justifying his fleeing were, again according to my opinion, not sincere. Kibaki may be many things, but, a murderer he definitely isn't.

His first appointment on return, though telling, the company he chooses to keep way forward should give us an inkling us to where Githongo is coming from.

For me, I will reserve my conclusion about the man and wait for the success of his endeavors. This is the only means to establish whether all the hullabaloo he raised was worth it, or it was just a means of upping his CV.