Back to Africa Check

Kenyan lawmaker Charles Njagua aka Jaguar ‘moving to Azimio’? Ignore fake graphic, not from Mpasho news site

On 14 April 2022, a screenshot of a graphic that was posted on Twitter and Facebook claimed Kenyan legislator Charles Njagua Kanyi had defected from the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) to the Azimio la Umoja coalition

It shows a photo of Kanyi, a musician-turned-politician popularly known by his stage name Jaguar, standing next to legislator Babu Owino

Under the photo is the text: “Charles Jaguar reveals that he is considering moving to Azimio grand coalition.”

Owino is a member of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), a party which belongs to the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition

The Azimio coalition is challenging Kenya Kwanza, a coalition of political parties also set up ahead of the country’s August elections, led by UDA presidential hopeful William Ruto. 

The graphic has the logo and branding of Mpasho, an entertainment news site in Kenya. It looks similar to posts that the news site publishes on Instagram, and the screenshot shared on Twitter and Facebook looks as though it is of an Instagram post.

The graphic was posted not long before Jaguar lost the UDA party ticket to defend his Starehe parliamentary seat, a constituency in Nairobi county. It gave the impression that Owino was wooing Jaguar or that Jaguar was consulting Owino about joining the Azimio coalition. 

Jaguar was upset that the party did not hold primaries in his constituency, and instead chose to use opinion polls to pick his rival. He threatened to run as an independent candidate

But had the lawmaker already “revealed” that he wanted to join Azimio, and did Mpasho report the news? We checked. 

CJaguar_Fake

Old picture, faked graphic

We scrolled through Jaguar’s Twitter timeline and found that the photo with Owino was first posted on 23 November 2021, when the two parliamentarians received a petition at the parliament buildings in Nairobi. 

Jaguar officially joined UDA on 24 January 2022. 

The photo is old.

On 17 April 2022, Mpasho posted the graphic on its official Facebook account, stamped “FAKE”.

“ALERT!!! This post that has been circulating on social media purporting to be from mpasho.co.ke is FAKE and has not been published on our website or any of our social media pages,” Mpasho wrote.

Jaguar did not defect and was still on the UDA campaign trail in June 2022.

Republish our content for free

Please complete this form to receive the HTML sharing code.

For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false

A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?

Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.

Publishers guide

Africa Check teams up with Facebook

Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.

The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.

You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.

Add new comment

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
limit: 600 characters

Want to keep reading our fact-checks?

We will never charge you for verified, reliable information. Help us keep it that way by supporting our work.

Become a newsletter subscriber

Support independent fact-checking in Africa.