Don't you have it exactly backwards?

I've heard (from people like Andrew Mwenda) that say that Western aid to African governments ends up not helping the citizenry and just props up bad governments.

Aid that completely bypasses corrupt governments and goes directly to citizens seems to be less likely to be stolen by middlemen. If you look at Give Directly (http://www.givedirectly.org/faqs.php) they send cash directly to a person's cell phone, and their audits have shown very little money being lost to corruption.