FAKE: This Facebook account does not belong to the National Police Service spokesperson
The National Police Service has cautioned that Resila Onyango is not on any social media platform.
A Facebook account purporting to belong to National Police Service spokesperson Resila Onyango is FAKE.
The account, which goes by username “Resila Atieno Onyango”, shares information on behalf of the NPS spokesperson.
In one of the Facebook posts, the account asks police officers to stay vigilant as the festive season approaches.
“Acting Inspector General of Police Noor Gabow has directed police officers to enhance crime surveillance and prevention measures as the country approaches the festive season,” one of the posts reads.
The account, which has 359 friends, uses the images of the NPS spokesperson. The account also introduces itself as the “Kenya national police spokesperson at Government of Kenya Spokesperson”.
While it is not clear when the Facebook account was created, the first post was shared on 12 November 2022. But does the account belong to the NPS spokesperson?
A search on Facebook shows that there are several Facebook accounts using the name Resila Atieno Onyango, hence making it quite difficult to tell which is the authentic one. However, there are no accounts under that name on Twitter.
Nevertheless, PesaCheck came across a tweet shared by the NPS flagging the Facebook account we are debunking as fake.
The tweet shared on NPS’s verified Twitter account reads: “We wish to caution the public against interacting with the multiple accounts purporting to belong to the National Police Service Spokesperson and Director Corporate Communications at the NPS, Dr Resila Onyango, PhD.”
NPS warned online users against interacting with the various Facebook accounts impersonating their Director of Corporate Communications.
“Please note that the Police Spokesperson does not operate any social media account and only transacts her official police duties through the NPS official communications platforms,” the NPS cautioned.
Onyango was appointed as the NPS spokesperson on 8 November 2022, taking over from Bruno Shioso, the new Commandant of the National Police Training Campus in Kiganjo.
Until her appointment, Onyango, a PhD graduate from Pennsylvania Western University, USA, was the Deputy Director of Planning at the Office of the Inspector General of Police.
PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook account purporting to belong to the National Police Service spokesperson Resila Onyango 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 Naomi Wanjiku 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.
