Kenya's Banksy Vs The Vultures

Nairobi can often seem an ugly, scruffy city filled with rubbish, traffic and smog. It’s not a city that is immediately lovable to the outside eye, and most of it won’t be winning any prizes for architecture or culture any time soon.

Despite this, Helen and I have learned to love our host city. Particularly at weekends, when it’s quieter, there’s less stress, and you can do a bit more “wandering” and a bit less “marching purposefully and glowering at everyone who hassles you”. Too many people give up on Nairobi too soon, or decide that they will simply avoid the city centre completely because it’s “unsafe”, and instead stay in the posh, white expat areas of Westlands, Karen or Runda.

Wandering through the CBD (central business district, as they call the city centre) on a recent Saturday, we came across something which made us stop and stare, and which filled me with joy. It was a series of graffiti murals on the walls around City Market, the big meat market in a run-down part of Nairobi.

The murals were painted in the middle of the night in March this year, and despite the anger and efforts of city hall, have managed to remain so far. They depict, basically, Kenya’s biggest problem: Terrible, corrupt leadership.

I don't pretend that British politicians are all whiter than white. All our UK readers will know this isn't true, after recent scandals over mis-use of the expenses system and disturbing collaboration between politicans and sections of the media. But equally, the public outrage caused by these scandals and the punishments handed out do show that we value good, transparent, public-serving leadership very highly. What if we didn't have that? What if we couldn't rely on our politicians at all?

It can be frustrating to talk to some Kenyans about politics, and hear them talk about voting loyally along tribal lines, and worse, to sense the feelings of helplessness, apathy, inevitability when they talk about politicians. I feel like too many Kenyans just think that corruption, poor leaders, suffocating tribalism and divisive rhetoric are just “the way things are, and the way they’ll always be”. It’s this that feels like Kenya’s biggest challenge, not poverty or famine.

So it was a beautiful, wonderful thing to see these protest murals. They depict MPs literally as vultures, scavenging off the hard work of ordinary Kenyans. I think it’s the perfect analogy. In Kenya, people often refer to politicians “eating”, and its exactly what happens – not just that they have big, fat bellies from plenty of food in a country which knows what it means to starve. But also that they “eat” the money and resources meant for public good – roads, schools, hospitals. Instead, this money frequently gets siphoned off, misappropriated, or simply vanishes into thin air, into the pockets of Kenya’s “leaders”.

After the tribal violence at the last elections, incited and encouraged by Kenya’s top politicians, which saw over a thousand people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced, many Kenyans are sick to death of things being the way they are.

Another part of the mural lists the many scandals that have hit the headlines over recent years, each of them adding to a picture of corrupt, self-serving, inept politicians. In the list are the Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing scandals made famous in Michela Wrong’s phenomenal book “It’s Our Turn To Eat”, about Kenya’s former anti-corruption tsar and whistleblower, John Githongo (I cannot recommend this book highly enough!). Anglo Leasing was one of several phantom companies who were awarded Government contracts at massively inflated prices, despite not existing and without any public procurement competition. It is estimated that through these companies, $600 million of public funds were fraudulently misappropriated by top Government ministers, allegedly including the then Vice President, Finance Minister and Justice Minister. Githongo came to the conclusion that this corruption went all the way to the top, and was at least partly intended to finance President Kibaki’s re-run campaign at the 2007 elections.

Finally, on the right hand side of the mural is a list of the “leaders Kenyans want”, listing the qualities that they should look for when casting their vote at the next elections.

As the campaigns for the next Kenyan General Election in March 2013 heat up, the newspapers are full of the political machinations and manoeuvrings of MPs and those seeking to be the country’s next President. Tribalism still seems to dominate the power struggles, even though the newspapers here are self-censoring and never mention tribe. Four of Kenya’s leading figures, including two Presidential hopefuls, await confirmation of their trial date for crimes against humanity at The Hague, accused of inciting the 2007/8 post-election violence. And it’s hard not to see the delaying of the elections to March 2013 (rather than August or December this year, as originally planned) as simply MPs wanting a few more months of their world-beating salaries (a recent expose in the papers here suggested that they earn about £6,300 a month in salary and “allowances”, and most of it is tax-free). Talking to our Kenyan friends here, we feel depressed that more violence, like that at the last election, seems increasingly likely.

But when you see murals like these, you’ve got to have hope. Hope that Kenyans know what they want, know what they need, and will demand the Kenya they deserve, in the end.

I've just spotted that The Guardian wrote a great piece about these murals – have a read:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/21/kenya-graffiti-artists-politicians-vultures