Corruption! Just one word, but a word so loaded with emotion, tension and incomprehension that it makes Kenya very excited. Yes, Kenyans thrive on endless analyses of corruption on FM radio and TV stations as well as in newspapers.

There are probably more agencies in this country dealing with the subject of corruption than there are those concerned with how to arrest hunger -- probably a more debilitating condition than whatever we mean to call corruption.

But maybe it is worth spending more time talking, debating or shouting about the monster called graft. In some places people face the firing squad for stealing from the "miscellaneous" expenditure box. Yes, to "borrow without permission" from that little safe at the office, in which money for milk, toilet paper or the newspaper is kept, is real corruption.

It is the early stages of a disease that eventually takes over one's soul and body and may end up swallowing up the whole society. Graft is eating, but it eats up the eater as well.

For instance, the relationship between corruption and the belly (a protruding one) is not just a matter of the fancies of writers and cartoonists. What else would one want to steal millions of shillings for? After buying a house, a car, another house, another car and a ranch or gone on a holiday, maybe married another wife and acquired all the little glittering things that the wealthy adore, what remains to be filled is the stomach.

The protruding belly, thus, becomes a true symbol of acquisition; of money to spend when one wishes and on whatever one fancies. And the ultimate acquisition is political power. To be in power not only guarantees the protection of the ill-gotten wealth, but also ensures that more networks that support illegal acquisition are built.

This argument is at the foundation of a seminal book and probably a classic of scholarship on African politics. State in Africa: the Politics of the Belly by Jean-Francois Bayart was originally published in French in 1989, and the second edition in English was published in 2009.

The book explores the complex set of dynamics that sustain corruption in Africa and how, in turn, corruption oils networks and linkages that influence power and governance in Africa. Bayart's analysis of the relationship between the state and the stomach; between politicians/the bureaucracy and corruption highlights the difficulties of looking at corruption as simply endemic to Africa, especially within the class of its rulers.

He argues that the networks that maintain corruption "... are founded on inequality, but are themselves producers of inequality." In other words, government officials or politicians may misuse, misappropriate or outrightly steal public resources because they feel they and their people (community or class) are victims of historical injustices or deliberate government policies that have denied them the chance to share in or prosper from common resources.

Yet the stolen wealth will never be equitably distributed among those for whom the corrupt office or politician claims to speak. If anything, a small clique may snatch at the crumbs falling from the high table. Some Luo, Teso or Giriama villager or slum dweller may only be able to share in what a tribesman has looted from the public by ogling at his flashy car, big house or well-fed family.

Yet, Bayart and many other scholars have shown that the political entrepreneurs -- people who are in politics purely for the material returns it may guarantee -- rely on a chain of relationships to maintain their status. That is why right now, the talk in this town is not about some specific individuals who may be accused of poor oversight at their work place.

And the accusation is not about these individuals being corrupt, but not being alert enough in their supervisory roles - but about how such accusations implicate 'their people.' Often it is not that the relatives, friends and members of the same community have actually benefitted from these people's activities, corrupt or otherwise.

It is just that those near or related to the corrupt are playing a game of chance. They are hoping that the current state in which "one of ours" finds him- or herself in, may force him or her to share the loot. Or the defence of "one of us" may be a pre-guarantee that should the defenders ever be caught in the act in future, they might cash in on their dues.

Thus, although an individual may be fingered for "eating" now, his or her supporters "eat by implication." This collective eating explains why there seems to be no shame in defending some cases of corruption. Bayart quotes a promise made by some Nigerian party: "I chop, you chop." But he qualifies it by noting that "not everybody eats equally."

This is a fact that both the big and the small fish know. Omena (small fish) knows that it may be eaten by mbuta (big fish). But keeping to your side of the pool guarantees some kind of peaceful sharing of the spoils. It is the solidarity between the big man and the small man in the eating that makes corruption in Kenya quite scary.

The fact that a person seeking any services in an institution is likely to be charged some "rent" right from the sentry box to the CEO's office. The clergy can con their congregations (remember the pyramid schemes) and there are NGOs in the city whose office-running expenses exceed the value of resources they actually spend on their declared projects for the poor.

Besides, a newspaper headline can be tweaked to serve very narrow interests at the expense of the common good and a trustee can steal from orphans. It is true also that people actually pick the pockets of the dead and dying at the scenes of accident. All this is what should make you and I really worried.

The writer teaches literature at the University of Nairobi