“Vote for Ruto, I am tired,” reads a screenshot of what seems to be a tweet by veteran Kenyan politician Raila Odinga.
The screenshot has been circulating on Facebook since late October 202 – posted here, here and here.
Odinga, 76, is leader of Kenya’s opposition Orange Democratic Movement political party. William Ruto, 54, is the country’s deputy president.
The two are political rivals, and leading contenders for Kenya’s presidency in the country’s upcoming 2022 general election.
But did Odinga really tweet this? We checked.

Fabricated tweet
There is a hint that the tweet might be fake, created with an image editing app.
In a real tweet, the time is usually given in full, but in this tweet the time is written as “19hrs”.
We could not find the tweet when we searched for it on Twitter, and Odinga posted two tweets on 31 August 2021.
One of the tweets was after he met members of the Kenya Copyright Board and the other after a meeting with members of the Somali Business Community.
The opposition leader has not said Kenyans should vote for Ruto.
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