Above is a screenshot of a tweet claiming that a statue of Raila Odinga had been erected in South Africa to show respect and honour similar traits between the Kenyan opposition leader and those of the nation’s late president, Nelson Mandela.
Background
Statues have been used worldwide to honour great leaders, heroes and/or any person or mythical creature revered by a particular group of people. Most statues are placed in iconic buildings and streets with some becoming popular tourist attractions. For example, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and Christ the Redeemer in Rio De Janeiro.
Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa, was a world-renown revolutionary.
Mandela was covicted on June 11, 1964 and the next day sentenced to life imprisonment together with 7 others. He was released from prison in 1990 and he continued with the fight against apartheid. He won the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with President FW de Klerk in 1993.
Statues of Mandela can be found worldwide from KwaZulu-Natal to London.
Verification
The blurry image did not provide any references after a reverse search on Google and Bing. There was also no metadata on the image.
With many comments claiming the statue was Mandela’s in the Nelson Mandela Square, a quick google search revealed that the image is from April 26, 2011. The image posted on Shutterstock is captioned “Statue of Nelson Mandela at Nelson Mandela Square, Johannesburg, South Africa”.
Verdict
The claim that South Africans erected a statue of Raila Odinga to show respect and similar traits with Nelson Mandela is therefore FALSE.
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