This tweet accompanied by an image of armed soldiers claims that William Ruto was allegedly put “under preventive arrest” and the “road to his home is blocked”. The tweet was posted on August 10, a day after Kenya’s general elections, and retweeted over 300 times.
On August 9, Kenyans went to the polls to conduct the general elections electing a new president and leaders in five other elective posts. The four candidates for the presidential elections are George Wajackoyah, William Ruto, David Waihiga and Raila Odinga. Raila Odinga and William Ruto are pitted against each other as the top contenders.
Verification
A reverse image search of the image attached to the tweet leads to this May 2016 article on Uganda’s Eagle Online news website. The image is used in context of an article that highlights Kizza Besigye’s house arrest in 2016. See screengrab below;
The image is also consistent with the one in an article by The East African which also reported on Besigye’s house arrest.
Moreover, as can be seen on the image, the vehicle’s registration number begins with “UP” which is the standard vehicle registration plate for the Ugandan Police as confirmed by this article. The uniforms donned by the police are also not similar to any uniform donned by any police force in Kenya.
Also, a search using keywords “Ruto under arrest” and “William Ruto under preventive arrest” and “William Ruto house blocked” indicate that the claimed incident has not been reported by any reputable media source in Kenya.
Verdict
The tweet claiming to show military officers outside William Ruto’s home is FALSE.
In this politically charged season, such claims may cause unwarranted alarm and even degenerate into violent reprisal.
This fact-check was produced by Africa Uncensored with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, African Fact-Checking Alliance network and the United Nations Development Programme.
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