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Newspaper front page claiming Kenyan senator impregnated top student is fake

The headline on what seems to be the front page of Kenya’s Nairobian newspaper, shared on Facebook, suggests a top female school pupil is “pregnant for” senator Isaac Mwaura.

“Is Goldalyne pregnant for Senator Mwaura?” it asks. A summary below adds: “It has been rummored that he has been intimate with the girl for a while now.”

Goldalyne Kakuya got top marks in Kenya’s certificate of primary education in 2017. Kakuya and Mwaura both have albinism, and the senator congratulated her at the time, saying she made the Albinism Society of Kenya proud. 

He later took several photos of himself and the student when the society donated KSh100,000 towards her education.

Facebook users who shared the December 2020 front page criticised the senator, and the story has found its way onto blogs.

The misspelling of the word “rumoured” in a front page headline of a national newspaper is a sign that something’s not quite right. Is the front page real? We checked.


 

Photoshopped image


Africa Check found the 11 December 2020 edition of the Nairobian in the newspaper’s online archive

The headline on the real front page reads: “Hot widow’s tragic sick leave with senator.” 

The article discusses the controversial death of Machakos county senator Boniface Mutinda Kabaka on 11 December in Nairobi.

The photo on the real front page is of Kabaka, not Kakuya and Mwaura.

The senator also took to Twitter on 15 December to call the front page “fake news”.

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