When I say there are IMPOSTORS in Kenya, I understand why most people don’t believe it, even though it is FACT.
I recall reading about a certain young man years ago, and on hindsight, I believe he was actually identifying himself as an impostor, yet no one believed his life story, not even the journalist who wrote about him.
I also did not believe a word of what the young man said, and I suppose everyone who read that article also agreed with the journalist that the man had serious mental illness.
It appeared that the motive behind the journalist writing about someone’s life story, that he didn’t believe was real, was because he thought maybe someone who read the article could offer the “sick” man help.
The journalist had met the young man in custody in Nairobi.
It is a long story.
I can’t recall exact date I read that newspaper article, but it was around 2002 (+/- 2 years).
I only remembered that story several months ago, and started thinking that, contrary to what I had thought about it then, it was very likely to be a true story, because it actually answered one very important question that has puzzled me about the impostors.
Background.
Those days, someone could remain in prison remand for long, even for petty crimes, and also even if you were innocent.
Most people arrested for petty crimes preferred to bribe police, or plead guilty in court, even if innocent, to avoid being kept in remand for months, or even years.
For capital crimes – murder/robbery with violence – some suspects stayed in remand for more than 7 years, as their cases dragged in court, whether guilty or innocent.
This journalist was a freelancer, who was not “well-connected”.
He had been arrested on a set-up, and stayed in remand in Nairobi for 1 month, before being released.
It was while in remand that he met the young man, who was in his early twenties (let me call him Imposter-X).
Imposter-X had been in prison remand for about 5 years.
That was quite strange, because he was not charged with a capital offence.
He was also not being taken to court.
Apparently, his file had “disappeared”.
Those days, govt files, including court registry files regularly got “lost”.
Therefore, the only way Imposter-X could leave remand, was if someone from the outside helped him/followed up his case.
But no relatives ever visited him.
No friends ever visited him.
It was not unusual for someone in remand to also be helped by other remanded persons, upon their being released.
Therefore, having no relatives and friends did not mean one had to stay in remand for ever.
Furthermore, there were lawyers who also offered free legal help to disadvantaged people.
But for good samaritans to help you, you first must give them your story about why you are in remand.
They must also believe your story.
However, if your story doesn’t add up…
If police arrested you for no good reason – just because they wanted you to stay in the cells over the weekend, and by Monday you would be so desperate to get out, that they could get a good bribe from your relatives…
Then, nobody comes to check on you…police get busy…
You end up in remand.
Days turn to weeks.
Remandees who are being released ask you who you want them to contact on your behalf, but you have NONE!
Not even neighbours?
How can you explain that?
And, of course, you can’t ask them to go to your country’s embassy in Nairobi.
They will believe you are hiding something, and get on with their lives.
NOTE: Those were days before mobile phones became common in Africa.
I don’t know how impostors contacted their Mossad “case officers”, or other impostors.
I also don’t know what were their instructions about what to do if they ever got arrested.
If, for security/secrecy reasons, a “case officer” never shared their home address with the impostors, how would the impostor contact him/her if they were in prison remand, and with no phone?
Conversely, when Imposter-X’s “case officer” noticed his disappearance, and started looking for him, how would he find him, if his charge file got “lost”, meaning no record of him in the prison or court?
Imposter-X sits in remand, hoping his “case officer” will somehow find him, and get him out.
Weeks turn to months.
His “case officer” never shows up.
Months turn to years. Still, his “case officer” is a no show.
Meanwhile, Imposter-X has been surviving courtesy of generosity of other remandees, all of them real Kenyans.
(Before police/prison reforms after Kibaki became president, remand food was never enough. Items like soap, slippers etc were supplied very rarely. Clothes? You had to buy…)
Imposter-X has been surviving by being provided food, soap, clothes etc by generous real Kenyans.
He starts believing his own people have abandoned him.
He has come to like these real Kenyans, but he cannot have any meaningful camaraderie with them, because his story doesn’t add up, and they all believe he is hiding something.
He is desperate to talk freely with other remandees.
The stress from not having any meaningful talk with another human being in years is killing him inside.
He can only relieve himself of this stress by telling them his true life story.
He is rotting in prison.
What is there to lose?
He starts telling fellow inmates about who he really is.
But nobody believes him.
He insists that he is telling the truth.
But the more he insists his story is true, the more they believe he must be mentally ill.
It is under these conditions that Imposter-X met the journalist, and told him about the story of his life.
The journalist also believed Imposter-X was totally nuts.
But he wrote the story and had it published in the newspaper.
When I saw that article those many years ago, I merely perused over, since I believed it was a story from a crazy person.
I now believe Imposter-X’s story to be true because there is something he said, that solves a major puzzle – Why (apart from Imposter-X) none of these Kenyan impostors has ever flipped, or told anyone about who they really are.
They study for years in Kenyan schools & colleges, but never, even once, disclose their secret, yet they are then quite young.
They get married to real Kenyans, yet apparently, also never, even once, disclose their secret to their spouse…
Imposter-X explained why, yet we all thought he was just insane.
I hope one day I will have the chance to find that article and read it slowly.
NB: It was written when KE newspapers were many years away from posting their entire papers online.
Very, Very Strange, But True
If you tell a random Kenyan that Pastor Dorcas, Veronica Maina, Faith Gitau, Rahab Mukami etc. are impostors, brought to Kenya by Mossad, they will tell you that is impossible.
Ask them why they think it is impossible, but they cannot give a logical answer.
I guess many people deny this FACT about these impostors because they haven’t heard it happen anywhere else.
Also, most people assume that, if something that strange and unusual happened, they would definitely have heard about it (before you told them).
They also believe, correctly, that you are not an expert in this field, so how could you possibly know what others do not know?
Personally, I think the best way to analyse these cases is to first accept that there is a lot that happens in the world that we do not know about.
Furthermore, there is a lot that happens in the world, where people are fed lies as to the cause, and believe those lies, because they are bombarded with information backing those lies, and contradicting any truths.
I will give a simple Kenyan example – High electricity prices:
A lot of Kenyans were made to believe that certain prominent citizens were the cause of high electricity prices.
They held demos…went to court…hoping to have these prominent Kenyans prosecuted, and stopped from fleecing electric power consumers.
They campaigned for the current ruling party, believing they would deal with the Energy ministry/KPLC/Electricity Mafia, since current ruling party were/are known to hate the prominent citizens allegedly behind the Energy ministry/KPLC/Electricity Mafia.
With current ruling party in power, electricity bills went up, not down.
Therefore, Kenyans genuinely fighting for low power bills were deliberately fed lies (by who?) so they could target innocent Kenyans, believing they were behind Energy ministry/KPLC/Electricity Mafia.
Currently, most of these activists have either gone underground, or reduced their social media presence, or completely stopped talking about KPLC power bills – Probably due to confusion and shock.
I repeat: There is a lot that happens in the world that you & I do not understand what the real causes are.
All I know about high electricity prices in Kenya is:
1. The bills are greatly exaggerated, and it is deliberate.
2. This has been going on for many years.
3. It is not a problem that can be solved in isolation. The many lies spread about certain issues in the country – and unfortunately believed by a lot of Kenyans – are meant to make people chase shadows, while those sabotaging the country have a field day conquering the nation.
Back to the impostors.
If you can be fed lies about electric power, and enough resources used to make sure you believe those lies, imagine the kind of resources they use – online and on the ground – to make sure you don’t know about the impostors, and that, even if you read about it, you won’t believe it?
What I do know is that, if these impostors were outed, say, 15 years ago, it would have been possible for more people to believe it, than currently, because those days, anyone could post articles online and they would propagate normally…be read by many people.
Nowadays, articles that can give weight to something they don’t want known, they outrightly shadow ban it, or even completely de-index it, so no one can see it.
If that doesn’t work, they hit the website with DDoS.
The issue of impostors can be given more weight by other articles online, but they are de-indexed (unreachable through normal search), or hammered with DDoS.
Therefore, even if you are curious, you don’t get the resources to investigate and either confirm it, or see it could be possible…
NB: I have written above about 15 years ago…No wonder most of these impostors were already in the country, but they generally lay low…They were unleashed publicly in 2017 & later, after info-control reached the levels we have today.
Meeting
Whenever people who share same mother tongue and know each other meet, they get that urge to automatically converse in the vernacular.
I wonder whether when Pastor Dorcas Rigathi, Veronica Maina & other impostors meet, they speak their non-Kenyan mother tongue, and what do they say about Kenyans generally?
Maybe the conversation goes as follows (speaking in their mother tongue, TRANSLATED):
Pastor: Hi! How is the country treating you?
Veronica: Hi! All good. Nothing to worry about.
Pastor: Do you sometimes wonder, they might believe the lies said about us (they are trained to speak like that, just in case…)?
Rahab Mukami: There was a time I thought everyone was suspicious of me…when that ****** wrote about me…
Faith Gitau: Kĩu kĩmũndũ, nĩ kĩĩ kĩũru nakĩo?
Veronica: Don’t even think about that. What is important is that nobody will ever believe that we are not Kenyans.
Ann Mvurya: I am not so sure about that…I think some Kenyans know, or at least suspect…
Pastor: Never harbour such thoughts. Kenyans may think you are mysterious, but they would never believe your true life story even if you told them.
Faith: Amen to that.
NOTE: There are several Kenyan politicians who have imposters embedded into them, including Rigathi Gachagua, Moses Kuria, Kimani Ichung’wah, Irungu Kang’ata, Ann Waiguru etc.
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