This tweet archived here contains what appears to be a screenshot of Chief Justice Martha Koome’s tweet. In the screenshot, she allegedly lauds President William Ruto for setting “a good example for @Kenyajudiciary.” This follows the president and first lady hosting a clergy meeting at The Statehouse for prayers.
Background
On September 5, the Supreme Court delivered a ruling dismissing all the petitions presented to the apex court and upheld President Ruto’s win. This was after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairperson, Wafula Chebukati, announced Ruto as the winner of the presidential polls of August 9.
However, Raila Odinga, who was among the petitioners challenging Ruto’s win, stated that he accepted the court ruling but disagrees with it. This was echoed by the lead counsel, James Orengo. A section of Kenyans also took to social media to express their disgruntlement and questioned Chief Justice Martha Koome’s credibility as the head of the judiciary.
Verification
One glaring issue that raises suspicion about the alleged account is an error in the lettering of the Twitter handle. While the CJ’s official Twitter handle is @CJMarthaKoome with a capital ‘J’ the alleged account has a small ‘j’. A dedicated search on Twitter for the said tweet returned no result.
From a reverse image search, we identified the post to have originated from a Twitter account bearing the name @MKMadoka, an account from which Piga Firimbi has identified misinformation before here.
Verdict
The tweet alleged to be from CJ Martha Koome is FAKE.
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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