FAKE: Nation Africa did not report that IEBC flagged 9,200 votes mistakenly added to Raila in Kisumu East
A screenshot shared on Facebook purporting to show a Nation Africa story that IEBC mistakenly added 9,200 votes to presidential candidate Raila Odinga is FAKE.
Nation Africa, according to the screenshot, published a story that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) had erroneously flagged 9,200 votes added to Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya presidential candidate Raila Odinga in Kisumu East constituency.
“IEBC flags another 9,200 votes in Kisumu East constituency mistakenly added to Raila,” the purported headline reads. It is accompanied by a photo of IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati.
But did the Kenya-based media house publish such a story? We checked Nation Africa’s website, Facebook page and Twitter account, where it publishes all its new content, but there was no such story.
On its Twitter timeline, we found a post flagging the claim we are debunking as fake.
“Beware of fake news! If it’s not on our official social media pages, it’s fake,” Nation Africa posted.
We checked IEBC’s website and verified Facebook page and Twitter account for any information regarding the claim, but there was none.
We also did a keyword search to establish whether any credible news source had covered such a story, but the results were negative.
PesaCheck has looked into a screenshot shared on Facebook bearing a headline of a story purportedly published by Nation Africa and finds it to be FAKE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Fact-Checker Rodgers Omondi and edited by PesaCheck Senior Copy Editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen Wainainah.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.
