Back to Africa Check

No, Kenyan opposition chief Raila Odinga didn’t tweet he’d be joining ruling Jubilee Party

A screenshot of what seems to be a tweet sent by Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga on 4 January 2020 has been posted on Facebook.

“I will be leaving NASA to join Jubilee,” it reads. “President Uhuru Kenyatta agreed with me. Therefore I'm insisting DP Ruto to form his own party and give me chance to join jubilee.”

Odinga’s National Super Alliance, Nasa, is the opposition coalition, and Jubilee is Kenya’s ruling party. William Ruto is the country’s deputy president.

Kenyatta and Odinga seem to have had a political reconciliation recently. Ruto has been reported to be increasingly isolated within the Jubilee Party, with calls for him to quit.

Did Odinga really tweet this? We checked.



Image manipulated


There are a number of hints that the tweet might be fake, created with an image editing app.

In a real tweet, the time is usually given in full. On a web browser, the time would show as “3:03 AM”, and on a mobile phone as “3:03”.

But in this tweet the time is written as “3.3 AM”. 

Another hint that the tweet is fake is how the number of “likes” and “retweets” are displayed. On Twitter, thousands are shown with the letter “K”. 

Instead of “2369 Retweets” and “7072 Likes”, a real tweet would show “2.3K Retweets” and “7.1K Likes”.

No evidence on Twitter


We could not find the tweet when we searched for it on Twitter, and Odinga did not tweet on 4 January 2020.

The opposition leader has not said he would be joining the Jubilee Party. – Dancan Bwire




 

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.