On this tweet is an image of what appears to be the front page of The Standard from February 10, 1999. The headline reads: Assistant Minister Warns “Rogue” Lawyer. The tweet makes reference to president William Ruto and Chief Justice Martha Koome with regards to the outcome of the 2022 presidential petition filed against the former by Raila Odinga, disputing the results of the presidential election.
Background
Following the disputed 2022 presidential elections, nine petitions were filed at the supreme court challenging the legitimacy of President William Ruto’s win. The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Martha Koome, dismissed all nine petitions hence upholding Ruto’s win. However, the Azimio Coalition, led by Raila Odinga, disagreed with the judicial outcome with the former Prime Minister issuing a statement through the Raila Odinga Presidential Secretariat stating, “we respect the opinion of the court although we vehemently disagree with their decision”
Verification
Piga Firimbi established that the front page on this tweet is doctored. A reverse image search showed that the image used on the front page is sourced from what appears to be an excerpt from a newspaper.
Source: Kenyans.co.ke Facebook September 1, 2019
While the front page is fronted as being from The Standard, the above excerpt was compiled by Delvin Omwodo, a Librarian at Nation Media Group PLC. Piga Firimbi reached out to Delvin Omwodo said that the picture, as seen above, was taken on August 31, 1993 and first published on the September 1, 1993 edition of The Daily Nation.
Below is the true front page of The Standard on February 10, 1999 furnished us by The Standard Group library.
Courtesy: Standardmedia Library
Verdict
The front page alleged to be from The Standard is doctored and the headline FALSE.
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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