Arica Uncensored is a media company in Kenya that is not new to controversy. It recently launched Wizileaks, a platform that exposes wrongdoing in the counties, especially the misappropriation of funds. Wizileaks helps journalists and the public track corruption in the counties. It also has a debt clock that tracks Kenya’s debt status.

It is largely a continuation of a trend that started during the Gen Z protests when netizens in Kenya started posting photos of stalled projects in the counties that cost millions and, at times, billions of shillings. They are now delving into Auditor General reports for further evidence that the monies had been misappropriated at the county level. 

Africa Uncensored is headed by John Allan Namu, a seasoned and well-known investigative journalist, who came under attack during the Gen Z protests when it was known that the Ford Foundation sponsors him. A fact he said he was not hiding or denying. Ford Foundation was accused of funding the Gen Z protests but stated that all information about its grantees is publicly available on its online platform, including the projects and the amounts received and that some of the projects had been disbursed even before the Gen Z protests began. 

This is also not Africa Uncensored’s first jaunt into exposing corruption. The company started ruffling the government’s feathers earlier in the year by uncovering a fertiliser scandal at the Ministry of Agriculture. This was done through a documentary that brought to light the fact that substandard fertiliser was imported into the country using a company whose ownership was closely linked to the cabinet secretary at the time, Mithika Linturi.  His ex-wife, Maryanne Keitany, the Member of Parliament for Aldai Constituency, was a director at the company involved in the scam.  A motion for his dismissal in parliament was unsuccessful. 

So far, the Wizileaks platform showcases four counties: Nairobi, Mombasa, Kiambu, and Machakos. It details the corruption cases in the counties under each Governor, offering a comprehensive view of how each has mismanaged funds under their leadership through a listing of each corruption case and a tally of the total amounts lost in each county. 

The website is also interactive making it fun for visitors to use. 

Riding on the wave of calls to accountability 

Wizileaks is not the only accountability project online. Morara Kebeso, an advocate, has been going around the country also showing the stalled projects that the President recently launched. He makes use of popular platforms such as X.com and has been on several television shows to talk about his findings. He is not the only one. Kenyans online have taken it upon themselves to go through documents and do civic education in a surge of citizen journalism that has never been seen on this scale before in Kenya. What perhaps is surprising is that ordinary Kenyans are willing to take on investigative journalism despite the abductions and disappearances that happened during the Gen Z protests of the perceived leaders of the movement. 

Identifying the gap in transparent and accountable leadership 

What is emerging from this flurry of citizen journalism is that institutions meant to hold the government accountable are not carrying out their work fully and are compromised. Projects such as Wizileaks are bringing to the fore the scale of corruption in the country and the impunity with which its perpetrators can get away with it. The failure of established institutions to prosecute corrupt individuals is the key point of failure. 

What is clear is that while Gen Z protests may seemingly be over, the desire for accountability for public resources is not. Kenyans are rising to the occasion to expose the public wastage of funds, and if these institutions continue to fail in their job of prosecuting corrupt individuals, Kenyans may take it into their own hands. Exposure is the first step; what follows next is not clear.