A screenshot of what appears to be a controversial tweet by the Kenya Power and Lighting Company has been posted on Facebook.
“#BABAthe5th,” it reads. The tweet is dated 17 May 2022.
Baba is the political nickname of presidential candidate Raila Odinga. The hashtag #BABAthe5th is used as an endorsement of Odinga’s run to become the fifth president of Kenya.
The country is set to hold elections on 9 August.
But did Kenya Power really tweet support for Odinga? We checked.
No sign of tweet on verified account
One sign that the tweet is fake is that the screenshot includes the sentence “This tweet has been deleted.” Yet the tweet is still visible.
We searched @KenyaPower_Care, the account that appears on the screenshot, for the tweet. We found nothing.
Such a provocative tweet from a verified account with over 1 million followers would inevitably attract replies. These would then point to a deleted tweet. We found no evidence of this either.
We also searched the @Osumo_brad account that the tweet was seemingly sent to in reply, and again got no result, or indication of replies. If a tweet is deleted, replies still remain online and reference a deleted tweet.
We found no evidence that Kenya Power tweeted #BABAthe5th.
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