Mutahi Ngunyi Versus John Githongo Who Will Win This Battle Of Wits?

John Githongo vs Mutahi Ngunyi: The Government's Enemy Number One Versus The President's Advisor; They go a long way back these two

It is rather fascinating that one of the President's most powerful advisors currently (Mutahi Ngunyi) is a man whose path has crossed with that that of John Githongo in the recent past in a rather dramatic way that has yet to be resolved.

Political scientist Mutahi Ngunyi's NGO - Series for Alternative Research in East Africa (SEREAT) hired Githongo as Editor of his political economy magazine, East African Alternatives

The magazine however went belly-up shortly after launch because one of the main donors, The Ford Foundation detected some anomalies in the way their funds were being utilized. An audit by FORD detected evidence of misappropriation and collusion between Ngunyi (the executive director of SAREAT) and Dr Jonathan Moyo who was then a program officer at Ford Foundation overseeing the resource allocations to the NGO. Both gentlemen have been sued and the case is still pending in court.

What is even more interesting is that Githongo is supposed to be one of the star witnesses for the Ford Foundation in the upcoming court case.

But as fate would have it, before the two men can face each other on opposite sides in court, they are already on two opposing sides locked in a fierce battle for the future of Kenya.

Ngunyi is advising the President and the whole objective is to retain the status quo and probably engineer a successful re-election bid for the President. Githongo has endeared himself to the hearts of Kenyans determined to hold on to a dream of a new Kenya. He is in fact being increasingly tipped to end up in politics some day.

Who is winning currently and who will win? One thing I am sure of is that we will not have to wait too long to find out the answer to both questions.

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Amid whispers of shocking secrets of exposed leaked details of Ruto's meeting with Raila in Mombasa and then followed by the presser where Azimio rejected Kenya kwanza issues for talks, most Kenyans are confused.

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Ruto Prophecy By Kalenjin Elders? Meshak Yebei walked out to buy something at a chemist shop in Eldoret on 28th December 2014 only to vanish into thin air. The events that followed both mystified and shocked the nation. Now many years later his name has started coming up again... a lot. Watch full video on the Yebei saga; Kalenjin Elders Ruto Prophecy on Yebei killers

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Did what was said in this video come to pass? Or did it not? Will the rest come to pass? 

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The high court will today (11th August) give direction in a most fascinating, unprecedented case where one of the big ethnic communities in the country seeks secession. Read full article; Court to issue directions where 10,000 Luos want to form their own brand new country

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The Azimio coalition intends today (11th August) to parade caskets of victims of police brutality as a rebuttal to statements made by Police Inspector General Japhet Koome that Azimio "hired bodies" to disparage the police. Prayers will also be offered today by Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya in memory of the supporters who died during anti-government protests in Bondo, Siaya County. Read full article; Azimio to prove today that IG Koome's claim of hired bodies is a lie and is just UDA insensitive propaganda

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Yesterday (August 9th), the value of the Kenyan shilling versus the dollar reached an all-time low, heralding inflation, rising import costs, and putting the nation at risk of increasing electricity costs and debt payment hardship. Data from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) show that on Wednesday, the shilling averaged a record-low 143.4441 versus the dollar. Since the birth of the Kenyan shilling, the local currency has never ever sunk that low. Read full article; Kenya shilling makes history (negatively): Strongest currency in the region sinks to where it has NEVER been

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The emergence of Jackson Mandago's name as one of the possible persons of interest in the Finland Scholarship scam (after all he was governor when the scheme was launched) is bound to raise political temperatures considerably at a time when the Ruto administration is so shaky and under so much pressure.

Mandago finds himself in a vulnerable position due to his love-hate relationship with Ruto in the past opening the possibility of the president succumbing to pressure and throwing him under the bus. Read full article: Mercy Tarus and Uasin Gishu Finland scholarships scam: Political reason why justice will NOT be forthcoming easily

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John Githongo Biography

I have attempted to put together a brief biography of the man of the moment for critical analysis by Kenyans. We hope that the gaps left out will be filled with time.

John Githongo was born in 1966 barely 3 years into Kenya's independence. The bitter political struggle between the get-rich-quick kitchen cabinet crowd surrounding President Jomo Kenyatta and politicians who still believed in the dream of the independence struggle like Tom Mboya had already started taking shape. The first Anglo-leasing-like deals had already been done and sealed.

Interestingly John Githongo's own father was soon to join the Kenyatta government and end up as a long serving PS (Permanent Secretary).

St Mary's Years
The most fascinating thing about Githongo's life is how despite his privileged upbringing going to school with the sons of the high and mighty in Kenya at St Mary's School, he still managed to keep his feet firmly on the ground.

St Marys was the school where the children of all prominent Kenyans went. Fellow students at about the same time were Uhuru Kenyatta (the current leader of the official opposition), former President Moi's sons, and the Kibaki children.

With his burly figure that brought him out as much older than his true years, classmates whose average weight and size was smaller, quite often made fun of him. Young Githongo did not particularly excel at anything. He did not become exceptionally good at games like rugby which were particularly popular at the school and where his built would have come in rather handy. And neither was he exceptional in his academics.

John Githongo's Comic Book Idea
One thing however clearly occupied young John Githongo's mind in his last years of high school. It was the publishing business.

In 1985 I had started an entertainment fortnightly called After Hours. Githongo heard about it and came to me with a grand idea of starting a popular comic book periodical. The world loves a story and with the masses of Kenya being quite often criticized as poor readers the idea was to produce movies on paper that they could relate to.

Personally I thought the idea was brilliant. A few weeks after we first met (I don't remember if we were introduced by a mutual friend, or he simply introduced himself), Githongo showed me some pages of his proposed comic book. He wasn't the artist, he explained, he just wrote the story and somebody else did the art.

Some 3 years later a popular men's magazine called Men Only would burst onto the scene in Nairobi with a very similar concept and equally similar deft art work in its' approach to the several pages of each issue that it devoted to picture stories. Well know local artists like Paul Kelemba (Maddo) were to emerge from that time. It was people like Kelemba who were to later break new ground in political commentary cartoons in Kenya with the Daily Nation.

Then our lives quickly moved in different directions and we lost contact. I was to learn later than he never really launched his pet publishing idea, probably because he was not able to identify a willing financier for the project. In the mean time he left for the UK where he studied Economics and Philosophy at the University of Wales.

The Executive Magazine Years
The next time Githongo reappeared in my life he was working for a well-known Business monthly, Executive Magazine. Strangely enough we never bumped into each other again despite the fact that I was then editor of a regional business monthly called Business Trend Review which covered a lot of similar ground.

At Executive Magazine Githongo got an opportunity to interview President Yoweri Museveni in State House Entebbe. His questions were carefully crafted but you could see the failed attempt to delve deeper into his subject. I enjoyed reading the interview remembering the man as the prospective comic book publisher who was now getting very seriously into business and regional political writing.

The EastAfrican Columnist
I believe that the Museveni interview was the sort of work that attracted the attention of the revolutionary founding editor of the EastAfrican, Joseph Odindo. The regional weekly newspaper was launched by the Nation media group in the mid-1980s. Githongo started off as one of the main columnists at the newspaper, commenting on a wide range of issues in Kenya as his two other columnist colleagues did the same for the other East African countries of Uganda and Tanzania.

There is no doubt that Odindo is one of the most gifted newspaper editors in East and Central Africa today. His work and ideas have come to the forefront in recent years as he has transformed the Daily Nation from a boring tired newspaper virtually stuck in a time warp, to the sort of vibrant human interest modern newspaper that is fitting increasingly well besides the increasing power of TV and the Internet in Africa.

Githongo greatly benefited from working under Odindo and I have no doubt on my mind that this period in his life greatly influenced his current thinking. Kenyan journalism is full of colorful selfless characters who have given their entire lives to practice a profession they love - journalism and writing in a rather harsh environment where it has not always been easy to write about most political subjects. Many of these characters have little to show for their years of devotion and dedication. In the West some of them would be celebrities. In Africa that time has not yet come.

I followed Githongo's columns in the EastAfrican closely, (many of them are indexed online as the EastAfrican is also partly available on the World Wude Web). I watched as he developed from a hesitant columnist trying to swim in a pool that seemed too large and too deep for him, to an authoritative and captivating columnist.

He quickly found a pet subject in the rather sensitive topic of corruption and now he seems set to make a career out of it.