General Ayanu Mathenge

 Back then, when Kenya was desperate for a hero, but not quite comfortable with the ones that were roaming our streets. We airlifted a peasant by the name Lema Ayanu - after Koigi, the late Mirugi and other PNU honchos were convinced that he was the venerated Maumau General Mathenge. The comedy of errors that followed needs to be immortalized in a book. The wizened Lema had no recollection of ever having been a Maumau fighter, let alone a celebrated General, could not speak even a word of his 'native' gikuyu language and couldn't recognize his 'wife' whom he had supposedly left in Kenya as he fled the British onslaught on his army. Not believing and unwilling to own their very public blunder, his handlers even tried to twist the story, claiming that he was deliberately feigning ignorance since he was still a wanted man by some Maumau elements.

As the cacophony of noise -laughter, groans of embarrassment, angry rhetoric gathered momentum, the old man was silently abandoned and whisked back to Ethiopia.

I'm sure he had a lot to tell his buddies back home -in Amharic