By Cynthia Kanyali
A Twitter post with an image of a man whose trousers appear to be torn, exposing his legs identifies him as Robert Alai, a Kenyan blogger.
The post claims the photo, which shows the man walking beside a police officer, represents the state under which Alai was arrested in Kano, Kisumu County.
It is accompanied by the caption, “Robert Alai arrested after being caught running naked in Kano”.
Similar posts have also been shared on Facebook, as seen here, here and here.
Verification
A reverse image search on Tineye.com, however, reveals that the image has been online since 25 March 2021.
A further look through Google’s reverse image search accompanied by keywords ‘by-election agent Matungu Kakamega’ reveals that the image was taken on 4 March 2021, during the by-election held in Matungu, Kakamega County.
Online publication Kenyans.co.ke reported that an election agent was stripped by angry residents after he was accused of voter bribery during the Matungu by-election, which was corroborated by an article on TV47’s website, which ran with the image.
The Matungu poll was marred by chaos and voter irregularities as evidenced by local broadcaster Citizen TV, here.
The by-election had 15 candidates contesting the seat that fell vacant following the death of member of parliament Justus Murunga on 14 November 2020. Among the candidates were the late Murunga’s widow, Christabel Amunga and son Eugene Ambwere.
Verdict
PesaCheck has looked into a Twitter post claiming the image of a man whose trousers are torn and exposing his legs is blogger Robert Alai, following his arrest in Kano, Kisumu County and finds it to be FALSE.
This story was produced by Africa Uncensored in partnership with Code for Africa with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie.
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