By Gray Phombeah, Deputy Editor, World Service, Nairobi,
24 August 2004
In the heart of Nairobi is an oversized sculpture of modern Kenya’s founding father, Jomo Kenyatta.
Each day, beneath his gaze, hundreds of people have been filing past into the Kenyatta Conference Centre to witness the proceedings of the worst corruption scandal since he led his country to independence 41 years ago.
The crowd has included hordes of journalists, like me, doing what we do best here – recording one of the corruption scandals that have scarred Kenya’s post-colonial history.
I came here four years ago, after six years with the Swahili service in London, while Daniel Arap Moi was still in power and seeming like he would rule for ever.
The Goldenberg affair, as it came to be known, was big news even then.
The general idea was that between $3bn and $4bn had been stolen by officials of Moi’s regime who allegedly generated state subsidies for gold and diamond exports that never took place.
A fresh chapter
The clamour for reforms and democratic space was reaching its peak as I stepped out of the Jomo Kenyatta airport in December 1999 to begin my Nairobi posting.
Then, in December 2002 a makeshift coalition of opposition parties swept to power, ending Moi’s 24-year rule. Euphoria, pride and relief swept a huge crowd of Kenyans watching as Moi quit.
Mwai Kibaki was sworn in as the third president of Kenya, in a ritual seen by many Kenyans as the start of a fresh chapter after years of worsening poverty and corruption.
By this time, the Nairobi bureau was bigger and more one-BBC. A modern newsroom enabled us to do live programmes, dispatches and packages in English, Kiswahili, Somali, Kinyarwanda and even French, and transmit them in quality sound to London.
There have been moments of good, solid reporting for me to cherish.
Like the visit to a Nairobi prison. Little was known about what went on inside prison walls in Kenya. And so the sight of hundreds of half naked bodies, pressed together on the cold concrete floor of their cells, their cages filled with the fetid smell of sweat, dirt and human waste, was shocking.
Gripping glimpse of grotesque corruption
Four years on, little appears to have changed for this city of two million people or the Nairobi bureau. Because of the rising crime rate, Nairobi still gives the impression of a city under curfew at dusk.
The colour and bustle are stripped off its streets. Only the foolhardy (and of course the criminals) go out on foot. And the big story has remained the same.
The current administration finds itself at the centre of two major corruption scandals, 20 months since coming to power. They involve irregularities in a plan to buy passport equipment from France and another deal to get police forensic science laboratories from Britain.
Meanwhile, Kenyans follow the Goldenberg inquiry which has been dishing out its share of high drama, comedy and a gripping glimpse of grotesque corruption on the evening television news bulletins.
As each day passes and more corruption scandals are revealed, the sculpture of Jomo Kenyatta cuts a rather lonely figure.
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