SATIRE: This image of Presidents Ruto, Museveni, ex-Prime Minister Odinga and DP Gachagua is doctored
The Kenyan Deputy President seated in a grass field is not in the original photo.
This image on Facebook of Presidents William Ruto, Yoweri Museveni and Kenyan opposition politician Raila Odinga talking as Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua watches from a distance is SATIRICAL.
Kenyan President Ruto, ex-Prime Minister Odinga and Ugandan President Museveni were seemingly in conversation while holding herding sticks on 26 February 2024. This happened in western Uganda.
In the claim image, Gachagua is seated on grass behind Ruto, Odinga and Museveni. Far behind them is a herd of cattle, browsing.
PesaCheck ran the image through the reverse image search which returned a Facebook post by Odinga on 26 February 2024 with the original image, among others.
According to the post’s description, the image was taken at President Museveni’s ranch. The neighbouring countries’ Heads of State and Odinga were reportedly discussing, among other issues, the Kenyan opposition leader’s candidacy for the African Union Commission chairperson’s job.
Gachagua is not in the original photo, an indication that the claim image was doctored.
Kenyans online have previously used the image of Gachagua seated on a lawn to create memes.
PesaCheck examined the image, supposedly of Kenyan Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua watching from a distance as President William Ruto, his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni, and ex-Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga confer, and found it to be SATIRICAL.
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 senior fact-checker Simon Muli and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck’s 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.
