The disappearance of Abdulrasheed Bawa, By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

1 month ago

Ben Carlson

1 minute

Reading Time: 5 mins read

Around 6 February 2005, John Githongo, Permanent Secretary in Kenya’s Presidency responsible for Governance and Ethics, resigned after only two years in the role. As Michaela Wrong narrates in her

vicarious memoir

of Githongo’s tenure, his resignation letter was transmitted from an anonymous grocer’s shop in London at the beginning of what turned out to be a three-year-long exile. He had fled the job “

fearing he could be murdered

.”

When he took up the position in 2003, Githongo had arrived with energy and ideas from a senior role in global corruption watch-dog, Transparency International. Corruption, he told Ms Wrong, “could only be fought from the top.” The main lesson from his two years on the job, instead, appeared to be that fighting corruption was also most usually frustrated from the top.

Fighting Corruption is Dangerous

disclosed by Wikileaks

preoccupied

multiple humiliations

cable