Conned by a Fake Kenyan President

By Margaret Waruri

Violence, separation, mums death, destitution, early marriage, husband
death, HIV stigma and widowhood, Th ese adversities have birthed a
diversity of eff ects such as endurance and resilience that even death wont
silence. consequently, the dare of this audacious fellow citizen counterfeiting
my president is a life setup, I know. the con may have done it over and
over in the past, but the privilege and thoroughness of the experiences as
mentioned above have amplifi ed my voice to stand and speak out for a
generation which the gods mute. In truth, I am set free indeed to know
that its louder in the tomb. Inside these pages is its nakedness. Th e real
conversations as is with a fake Kenyan President who conned me hundreds
of thousands by impersonating President Uhuru Kenyatta in the name of
helping to build a youth centre, a goal I had shared. How much deeper can
we as a nation Plunge?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524545239

Margaret Waruri

The author is the third of six siblings. Her parents separated when she was eight years old, followed by her mother’s demise fours year later in a road accident, leaving six children to fetch for themselves in a single rented room. Margaret got married at age twenty and managed to train as a legal secretary while raising her two daughters. She lost her husband of sixteen years in 2004 to HIV, but she tested negative. Adversity has shaped a woman who, in 2008, founded one of the most impactful youth ministries in the Kenyan diaspora, The Talanta Awards. Margaret is an ordained deacon and now a LPN by profession. She lives in McLean, Virginia, and fellowships at HOF Church of God in Springfield, Virginia.

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Copyright © 2016 by Margaret Waruri.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5245-4524-6

                eBook          978-1-5245-4523-9

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Rev. date: 10/05/2016

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Foreword

The fooling, the fool and the fooled

My Introspection

My devotion to serve God and my solemn allegiance to my beloved country of Kenya is forever inscribed in my DNA. My ultimate respect for The President in office His Excellency Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta as one of his proud constituents in Diaspora remains unscathed.

No part in this book invalidates the above sentiment whatsoever.

Acknowledgements

Undoubtedly the most influential of all in my life has been God. Nowhere else a steadfastness, an inquisitiveness for more, reach for greater heights, a commitment, a devotion, a consistence, abundance of grace, peaceful life could come from. The water that makes me thirst no more, He gave.

My dear parents, I witnessed the beauty and lack of it in the presence or absence of their leadership. I am forever grateful and indebted to them since every step of my purpose route I have learnt indelible lessons that nothing else could teach. My siblings of whom I am very proud have been pillars all along. My Elder Sister Rev. Lillies Njenga who had to take on a mother responsibility at the age of 18 after my late mother went on a trip never to return, I owe you love eternally. Gladys, Eva, Murimi and Kamau my world makes more sense with you in it, I love you. We bundled together in that single room with courage oblivious of staring eyes, the kind of stare that Orphans often receive. Mama always said, ‘though am separated from your father, he remains your father’ even though the dad role was totally neglected even after moms’ death. It is well. Mama was a school teacher who bore enough courage to say no to violence in the seventies. She trusted God and ran away from an abuser with six children. That is a summon of courage, I salute you mama!

I am as grateful to my late husband as well who indeed was a great support till death did us part. Rose and Esther my two daughters with whom we have engaging stories about life, leadership and the future, young but yet my pillars of motivation. After the death of your father due to HIV and AIDS 12 years ago, the chance to live was almost null but your beautiful innocent beings gave me a thousand plus one reasons to face tomorrow with greater zeal. My extended family, Friends, colleagues in Ministry, Talanta Awards sons and daughters are pillars that have upheld the house when walls threatened to crush under the pressures within and without. For all the above, I am forever grateful. Your support has given me strength to hold on to hope and to withstand effectively the most perplexing knocks life continually hands.

Introduction

Writing this book has been a remarkably delightful and rewarding journey. I have had innumerable conversations about leadership with mentors, friends and family. I treasure all these experiences since they have shaped and influenced my own concepts of leadership as first and foremost a personal responsibility as it is a social one. Until we are able to lead from the heart upwards, we spiral down with millions on tow.

Read this book if there is pain for change within, not just a farfetched propensity for change, but a painful labor of whom? Why? What? Whence?. Labor that says I am birthing out change though it deeply hurts, I am well able to face the giant and possess the promise even just for my children. The birthing is dangerous for it is a life and death situation but someone must take responsibility. Our forefathers put their lives on the line for our sake. That someone to effect change in its least of proportion is me. This child must be born. This child will not die in the womb of procrastination, sulk, or blame game. This child will not be delayed any longer due to the fear of men and man-made systems. The child must be birthed healthy alive and kicking. This child will not be ushered in by evil midwives but by men and women with a resolve of solidarity in this solution revolution. This child will be ushered to a generation, which has a ‘well able’ mindset ready to face and solve society’s toughest problems.

The famous old English ditty says: ‘The law demands that we atone when we take things we do not own but leaves the lords and ladies fine who take things that are yours and mine’. It would be immoral to keep quiet while the rot of selfish, petty social auctioneers buzzes around some whose thoughts and heart may well be right at the expense of an innocently misguided generation. The real man has displayed dignity, strength and passion for the beloved nation. He is really the one conned here. The deliberate natural social generosity he has demonstrated in being so accessible and personable has been trampled over time and again by uncouth characters whose intentions are the real description of evil.

One among many reasons for writing this book is to sneek peak us further into a glimpse of a fallen society. In this social network and global village era, an individual calculates almost accurately on how to impersonate the current President of the Republic of Kenya Hon. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta in order to swindle people thousands of dollars but truth speaks loud indeed. Deceit lasts only but for a while.

Majority of those fully sold out to serve their God given gift to the world do trust easily. Some might be quick to say we should not trust foolishly but judge only if you have never been betrayed. It is in the course of purpose living where nothing else matters more than reaching out to touch one more life of a young person in Diaspora or rural Africa that someone alleging to be my beloved President reached out to me with a feign to congratulate me on the good of my assignment. i.e Talanta Dev. Inc/Talanta Awards. During conversations that followed, I requested an email to my Board of Trustees to confirm his identity. He sent the email. I further requested a phone which he did, yes he called and sounded legitimate. I further requested him to call a Pastor friend as he is an influential Leader in Diaspora, he called the Pastor. Further still, one of my Pastor friends adopted son had ran away from home and joined a terror group. He was in Lodwar en route a neighboring country to fully engage. On learning this, I informed the said President, he later informed me that they have combed the entire town and rescued the 18year old young man. Indeed, on making the call to Kenya, we confirmed that the young man was safely back to his home in Murang’a. This shrewd saga took place between October 2015 and March 2016. On insisting to meet him and preparing the Team in Kenya to meet him in April, his supposed schedule seemed way too tight to accommodate the meeting. There are mentions of the Presidents’ wife, children, sister, mother, politicians, high profile mentions that shadowed my every doubt but woke up one morning with a urging to just stop the conversation. I sort God on what to do. The inclination to put it out there in writing has never been stronger.

The validity of the said allure is contained in the pages of this book with all the conversations as were.

Foreword

As I pondered within trying to establish the best thing to do under the circumstances, I lay prostrate for a conversation with God but as soon as I totally surrendered, a voice said ‘get up and write’! God, I asked ‘what where and how do I start’? The same Image of My Lord standing beside me looking sad pointing the head came up all over again as it did several years ago. This reminded me of ‘mindset’. We give excuses for things that we ought to obediently take a trusting first step. We are only vessels God uses, only stewards of His talents and Gifts. What He needs to touch He uses our hands. Where He needs to go He uses our legs. What he wants to say He uses our mouth and so on. After this quickening, a surge of assurance infilled my whole being. I realized how empowering it is to obediently take initiative in any task He assigns, after all it is not our task but His.

My understanding of Tests Vs Triumphs is that the solution always lies between the circumstance and the response. There I was with a challenge that required my response as the first hand respondent given the circumstance. Here it is I sat on my computer and could not stop writing.

Over the years the depths of my compassion compartments have been continually challenged level after level. The product of these challenges is daunting passion to bridge dignity and pride, to find expression among the youth. By fully believing in them I have beheld many flourishing from within during the worst of circumstances and for this, there is more pressing on to do within me. My aspiration is to impart and re-ignite hope for the African child whose robust potential is denied the entrée of opportunities that now swim in the sea of corruption.

The responsibility of reaching out to young men and women out there is not just a great Idea, this is our hope for continuum as it were. They are leaders at their levels today and how we model leadership speaks volumes into their future perspective of Leadership. Responsibility cannot just be taught within four walls but out of exposure to situations that demand it. I therefore take full responsibility and cut through the resistance winds of doubt and fear of judgements in the following pages.

As a leader of your own life, deny the world systems the pleasure to have you live life enduring a nightmare of mediocrity, tip-toing through just to make it securely to the tomb of barreness! I may not know what label the law might give me but whatever it could be, my conscience and thoughts have never been stronger. There is a voice within me calling out for change, parents have become terrorists to their own children. Instead of clearing all debris along their path, we are busy crowding their future with terrorizing self-inflicted curses from our disobedience. They dread our very path yet we are their stewards and first hand models. It has been a journey through dangerous pits yet the thought of misleading a generation sends a wave of repentance shivers within. It is the kind of processing that determines the value of the product. Majority today are settling for a one-day processing.

We have not shortage of skeptics about this book but at least this escalates awareness of how deep we have plunged as a people. The problem is the cultural climate where the ‘Giant’ in the room is too big for anyone to dare. Many have given up and opted to settle in comfortably and cheer the blame game on and on. For those in politics, the Giant is usually ignored for the sake of correctness. The African giant is greed and all cahoots on its league.

Aristotle and Plato said that greed causes unfair behavior and even harms the greedy person himself, it prevents others from getting their fair share. No one ever thinks they are greedy, so who is? When we have false and misguided attempt at fulfillment enough is never enough, we have more wants than needs. Fear of life is one cause of greed but this will never cease until we die to ‘self’. No Leader can enjoy inward fulfilled success with un-noble selfish intentions. None. Warren Buffet said he gets more fulfillment while helping others succeed more than all the money he has ever made or the power attached to wealth. What makes a leader in Africa or Kenya think grabbing, stealing, oppression, division is cool? How long is it enjoyed anyway.

After seing notifications of his 54th birthday, I made a nice happy birthday notice to my beloved President. I knew very well he could not be the one managing his public page so the thought of him personally responding was not anywhere on my Agenda. However, all have a right to their opinions about the days that followed. They say a fool and his money will soon part, it is true, however being fooled does not necessarily make you one.

First of who would ever think anyone would write ‘I am the President’ and also make phone calls impersonating the President. Call me naïve’ a million times, yes I am in many ways; but in this era of social media, phone calls could be excused but giving names with bank accounts and phone numbers is the insanity that got be trusting. The honor and respect of the country’s sovereignty and its sitting President should be enough to subdue the evil audacity and opt other ways to extort money and lie. David prayed this way, when under pressure and overwhelmed Lead me to that Rock higher than myself. (the perfect Prayer in overwhelming temptation). There was a fore-warning not to categorize this book? In the process of writing this book there is soul searching for direction. For Authors out there forgive me, for those who have not written a book, Judge me not. Just read on if you must.

This book is not a gratuitous report. It is not a call for my own justice but that of a generation ravaging in brutal uncertainty and fear. This is not a 999 or 911 call for an arrest either. This has no hidden agenda whatsoever, so keep political unsolicited comments to self if you will. This book is about a life totally sold out to a call greater than the writer, greater than a country or a system. A call that will get in the fire if it means thus to counteract injustices that are affecting generations. This is a mandate to hold a hurting girls’ hand a self-searching boys’ hand and walk with them out of the obscurity of ‘Lo debar’ to a place called fullness of life. A journey of a 14year old girl who looked out the window years on end for her mother to come home to no avail. Looked out in search for a dad but only had a father somewhere in the distance. From an orphan to now a widow. This is not a stunt for sympathy but an awakening for courage and resilience at all levels of life. Our eventful life journeys shape our destiny and are nothing to be embarrassed about. They give us reference and remebrance the far we have come. It is freedom that has a cost.

Perhaps one reading this may say, Hey Meggie give me a break am not interested in all this!

I hear you its ok to leave it halfway for a breather even if never to read more. That is enough but during the same thorny journey this far has emerged one strong tenacious woman preserved from the furnace of HIV and AIDs for such a time as this. That was in 2004 when the Specialist doctor asked to have my last born daughter who was ten years old then tested for the decease. That interpreted meant that my case was obvious according to the medical expert but there is always the one who has the final say, the fourth man in the fiery furnace. My death sentence was past due but for your sake (dear reader), mercy said not yet. Believe in Him, trust Him, let all lying men be liars but God is true.

The present is here but future is contingent to what we do right now. This is the rationale of this raw writing, doing something is better than doing nothing at all, so I hear someone say. Hey some credit for doing something.

We live learn and love do not mislead to make an argument from this book, that means there is no case. Finding my REAL President who I love would have been an ordeal lest I consult with the fake one, then down the drain goes all efforts. Worse still consulting with law makers could mean ten commissions of enquiry. The victims here are our children who will inherit the Africa or Kenya we have created for them. With a good education, or with looted money the ripple effect of the social evils is felt by all either way. It is never a win/win until we defeat this evil stronghold or corrupt minds.

The fooling, the fool and the fooled

• Ken Uhuru K

Happy Women’s Day Meggie.

• October 30, 2015

10/30, 11:28pm

Ken Uhuru K

Asante sana Meggie for the birthday wishes. Pole(sorry) for the late reply. been too busy.

Nashukuru.

10/30, 11:42pm

Meggie Waruri

Oh it is well Sir.

• November 1, 2015

11/1, 9:29am

Meggie Waruri

Sir, just a sneak peek to you of what I do with your young constituents in Diaspora. It is my earnest desire to raise well grounded Servant leaders to take over from us and lead the next generation to higher heights than we did. I work, am a widow, a mother of 2girls, a grandmother and my greatest of all is serving my generation with the little I have in a great way. I travel around different states, countries and Kenya advocating the empowerment of potentials among our youth. They have a lot in them, and just a little boost in word and deed transforms them forever. I personally by the grace of God sponsor this. I do mentorship camps…bringing youths from rural kenya, kajiado, nanyuki, coast etc to nairobi spend time with them in a rented hotel, teach them, love them, etc. I also travel with youths from Diaspora to kenya for this. We are blessed to have you as our president Sir. We look forward to have our own Centre in Kenya to do this by the grace of God. Blessings to you Sir.

11/1, 9:30am

Meggie Waruri

Watch Leadership - Meggie - Talanta Awards on YouTube - https://youtu.be/_uXFxkgyRJQ

Watch Meeting The Need - Talanta Awards on YouTube - https://youtu.be/kWaWXMbRQRk

This video is for 2012…a lot has happened since.

Thank for your attention. May God Almighty PRESERVE YOU in good Health where NO devil can do you no harm. Amen.

We had published that birthday wish flier on our social network pages, not sure you had seen it since your inbox does not allow pics.

• November 2, 2015

11/2, 5:50am

Ken Uhuru K

Meggie, Asante sana for reaching out to me and updating me about what you do for our young people…am so grateful Meggie. Ni ngatho muno (do you speak or write gikuyu?).

Pole sana for the loss of your husband…when did he go home(heaven)…. pole sana! You’ve done a tremendous job in bringing up your girls and congratulations for been a grandma!

You are doing a great job Meggie and wendo wakwa nì kunyitanira nawe o haria ingihota! (my desire is to help where I can) What you are doing is simply amazing and needs to be commended and supported!

Kindly be briefing me on your plans. I would very much want a centre here in Kenya to push your ideals. Let’s see what we can do Meggie.

Thayu.

11/2, 6:47am

Meggie Waruri

Thank you so much Sir even for your response. Ii Ni njaragia gikuyu. Njitagwo (yes I speak kikuyu, my name is) Margaret wambui, cucu aanjitaga ‘mwari wa Kenyatta’ tene. Hahaha. My husband passed on in 2004 April 12. Left me with 2 girls who were 10 and 12years old then. ..and thank you! It feels great to be a grandma. I came to Kenya in April, rented a hotel for 32 youths from the rurals, some had never been to the City. I then got a church nearby where we would conduct the camp sessions from 6am-7pm. I had hired 3 women to cook 3meals a day for the kids for this 6days. I put back one in school at age 26, since at the camp, they open up and have had all manner of issues…but after camp, they are ready and have hope. I have invited the top 3 winners here in the USA for the Grand Finale this thanksgiving, they ALL 3 got their visas! One is here and the other two are still trying to gather ticket money. Then we did the Grande Finale at KICC where I paid 210k @Tintin.

Everything am saying THE Centre will be of great help. Anywhere in the outskirts of cbd but accessible would indeed help so we can centralize all our activities. THANK YOU, THANK YOU so much Sir for your support and encourgement. I shall continue to brief you.

11/2, 6:47am

Meggie Waruri

Thayu.

11/2, 7:00am

Ken Uhuru K

Nì ngatho muno muno (thank you very much) for sparing your time to talk with me.

Currently heading to a meeting but reke twarie hwaini (lets speak Kenyan time) if that’s okay with you Meggie (mwari wa Kenyatta).

Asante.

11/2, 7:32am

Meggie Waruri

Sure Sir. Thank you.

• November 2, 2015

11/2, 2:59pm

Ken Uhuru K

Meggie, Urio kuo wega? Nì hindi ndarikia mucemanio (you are well? I just finished a meeting) for the day na ndiraigua kiongo ta kingiatūka nì minoga na meciria maingi! (I feel like my head is about to burst)

Riu ri…nì (now) am still very much in awe of what you are doing and ma ma ma I salute you and commend you! Mwathani witu arokurathima tene na tene niundu wa wira waku! (May our God bless you for your work)

Nì ndatinda ngiciria muno uhoro ucio wa gukorwo na (I was all day thinking about the idea of having a) resource centre in the country whereby you and your young ones can be meeting. mugakoma kuo… (you spend the nights there) and do a horde of other stuff without worrying about money for accommodation or halls to hold meetings!

Ngona atiriri… (this is my thought) how about you acquire a piece of land then build a resource center? Had helped a friend of mine in Canada acquire land in kajiado county of about 20acres for 18m shillings. But I have been thinking that thika no gukorwo kwega muno nawe (can be idea for you) and what you are doing. Mbari citu niiri migunda (our relatives have land) in juja na ngona hihi (I think maybe) it can be a good idea to get land there…. Kiuria nì riri…hihi no ukorwo wibangite na kigina (my question is; would you be in a position to have like) ta about $17,000 which no ugure migunda wa ìka ikumi na ithano (where you can buy about ten acres of land). No njarie na (I can talk to) a few donor friends uhote kuona (to help you get) about 20m cia gwaka (to build) some buildings and ukorwo na (have a) centre. This is me just thinking out aloud!

Kindly brainstorm with me…tuone njira. (we find a way)

11/2, 3:44pm

Meggie Waruri

Sir I cannot even imagine how your days are like! Pole sana kwa kazi. Again, Words are not enough to express my Gratitude for your compassion. As I mentioned earlier, I personally sponsor this with my own paycheck. Yes, it sounds unreal but it is the truth. I grew up orphaned and I know exactly how it feels for the youth NOT to have someone holding your hand, cheering you on as you navigate through early years of life. These are also all students with no resources. That said, I know I can rally supporters around here to raise at least $10k. And YES! I will take Juja especially if its along Thika road since I hope to have the Centre generate income for sustenance. If it was between Ruiru and Nairobi…that would be prime for conferences renting, hostel rentals when we are not using it for our activities, also for easier accessibility etc….BUT I know one thing, our Centre will also be a get away for our President