Does This Video Show a Verbal Exchange Between DP Gachagua and Okiya Omtatah in July 2023?

By Rodgers Omondi 

The video is of a 2019 interview when Rigathi was the Mathira Member of Parliament.

This video on Twitter and Facebook supposedly featuring a July 2023 verbal exchange between Kenya’s Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah is MISSING CONTEXT.

In the video, Gachagua accuses Omtatah of being used by politicians to file anti-government cases in court.

Gachagua and Omtatah were elected deputy president and Busia senator, respectively, in the 9 August 2022 general elections.

We performed a keyword search on YouTube to confirm the video’s authenticity and established that the clip is from a June 2019 K24 TV interview. At the time, Gachagua was the Mathira MP while Omtatah was a human rights activist.

The debate was on new-generation Kenyan notes and whether they should have portraits of prominent people. The notes were launched by retired President Uhuru Kenyatta on 1 June 2019.

Omtatah had filed a petition in June 2019 challenging the inclusion of former President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s image on the new Sh1,000 note.

Google search for 2023 interviews featuring DP Gachagua and Omtatah yielded negative results.

PesaCheck examined a video on Twitter and Facebook supposedly featuring a July 2023 verbal exchange between Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Busia Senator Okiya Omtatah and found it to be MISSING CONTEXT.

This fact check was published by Piga Firimbi with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck and African Fact-Checking Alliance.

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