IN SHORT: In a mishmash of old clips and badly dubbed audio, Uhuru Kenyatta appears to apologise to William Ruto. The two had a famous falling out, but the TikTok video is doctored and doesn’t show them reforging their alliance.
On 5 September 2022, Kenya’s supreme court upheld the election of William Ruto as president. It had been challenged by Raila Odinga, who narrowly lost the vote by 48.85% to Ruto’s 50.49%.
Odinga’s bid for the presidency was supported by Uhuru Kenyatta, who Ruto replaced as president. Ruto was Kenyatta’s deputy, but the two later fell out.
The day before the court’s decision, a clip was posted on the video sharing site TikTok. It appears to show Kenyatta apologising to Ruto and restoring their alliance. The clip has been viewed more than 163,000 times so far.
“BREAKING NEWS H. E UHURU KENYATTA has today congratulated Ruto,” text on the video reads.
It begins with Kenyatta walking a red carpet outside State House, the presidential residence. It then shows him speaking to an audience.
He says: “I want to invite my brother William to come to the stage. Karibu! [Welcome!] Don’t worry, we are not singing today. You don’t have to worry.” Kenyatta chuckles, and the video cuts to Ruto, also laughing.
The same clip of Kenyatta speaking then repeats, but the audio is different.
“We have campaigned against one another. We have said nasty things about each other. We have hurt one another… I ask for your forgiveness,” he is heard saying. Further footage shows various scenes of Kenyatta and Ruto smiling and laughing together.
In the 2022 campaign, Kenyatta criticised Ruto and labelled him “a thief”.
But does the video really show Kenyatta congratulating Ruto and asking for his forgiveness? We checked.
Stitched-together footage, mismatched audio
The video is put together from three separate clips. The first has the logo of KTN News, a Kenyan TV station. The second clip has the logo of another local station, Citizen TV. The third has the watermark of the YouTube channel Kenya News Media.
We looked through the Citizen TV YouTube page for videos of Kenyatta and Ruto, and found this video posted on 31 May 2018. It was shot during that year’s national prayer breakfast. Kenyatta invited Ruto to the podium, and then invited Odinga and former vice president Kalonzo Musyoka.
In the video Kenyatta is seen addressing Odinga, and asking for his forgiveness. It is this audio that has been edited and inserted in the video claiming that Kenyatta congratulated and apologised to Ruto.
Odinga and Kenyatta had been arch-rivals for years. But in 2018 they became allies in the now-famous handshake deal.
At no point in the TikTok video does Kenyatta congratulate Ruto for his presidential win. And there’s no public record of Kenyatta recently apologising to Ruto.
Kenyatta did congratulate his former deputy after the supreme court upheld the election results. But the video was posted the day before the ruling, and doesn’t show the actual congratulation.
Republish our content for free
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 guideAfrica 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