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Exiled
anti-corruption fighter to return
to Kenya
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LONDON(August
15,2008)
- A government whistleblower who exposed one of Kenya's biggest corruption
scandals said on Thursday he would return home for the first time
since he fled to Britain three years ago fearing he could be murdered.
John Githongo, Kenya's former anti-graft tsar, will speak at a human
rights meeting in Nairobi on Wednesday. But he told Reuters it would
only be a short trip and he was coy about whether he planned to return
for good.
"I'm not willing to say until I'm on the ground," he said
in a telephone interview, adding he was excited to be going home.
Githongo is both admired and condemned in Kenya for revealing the
so-called "Anglo Leasing" affair shortly after he quit as
the country's first anti-corruption chief in 2005.
The scandal involved state contracts worth hundreds of millions of
dollars secretly awarded to phantom firms. Githongo's leaked documents
forced the resignation of several ministers.
Friends say Githongo was frustrated by a lack of government support
and had faced death threats that led him to seek exile in the UK,
where he is now an academic at an Oxford University college and vice-president
of relief agency World Vision.
His planned return comes after peace talks earlier this year created
a power-sharing government to end a post-election crisis that killed
some 1,500 people and uprooted many more.
"ENORMOUS RESOURCE"
Githongo said he had been invited back by Prime Minister Raila Odinga
and Vice-President Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka.
"I have been greatly encouraged by (both of them) and now believe
that it is time to return home and make any contribution I can to
the future of my country," he said in a statement.
Anti-corruption activists in Kenya welcomed his return.
"It's excellent he'll be here with us," said Job Ogonda,
executive director of Transparency International-Kenya.
"His absence from the country was an indictment of the government
of the day ... I would just hope he is coming back permanently. He
is an enormous resource," Ogonda told Reuters.
Githongo said he planned to speak his mind about what needed to be
done in Kenya, but he declined to comment about whether he might return
to government.
"I have no political affiliations. My obligations are solely
to the people of Kenya -- particularly the poor, the dispossessed
and those in need," he said.
Githongo also declined to comment on the anti-corruption performance
of President Mwai Kibaki's new cabinet, saying he wanted to check
the situation on the ground first.
Asked if enough had been done to promote reconciliation after the
post-election violence, the most traumatic chapter in Kenya's post-independence
history, Githongo said: "I want to see that. I am praying that
that has happened."
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