FALSE: This video isn’t of Kithure Kindiki’s message to President Ruto after the cabinet dismissal
The video is of the former Interior CS addressing a security meeting in Lamu in June 2023.
This video on TikTok, supposedly of Kithure Kindiki, the former Cabinet Secretary (CS) of the Ministry of Interior and National Administration, reacting to President William Ruto’s decision to dismiss the cabinet, is FALSE.
The clip depicts Kindiki addressing what appears to be a public gathering. His remarks in Kiswahili translate to: “This country cannot continue like this. We have to choose whether we will fix our country so that it is not damaged beyond what it has been, or we will stay with you and your affairs. And I want to tell you in advance that we will stay on the side of the people and on the side of our country and leave you.”
The video was published on 11 July 2024, hours after President Ruto announced that he’d dismissed his entire cabinet, except Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, who’s also the CS of Foreign Affairs.
But is the video authentic?
A reverse image search on Yandex yielded a video of Kindiki donning the same clothes and in the same surroundings, published on 16 June 2023 by the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC).
According to KBC, the video was captured in Witu, Lamu County, during the former Interior CS’s three-day security visit.
PesaCheck reviewed Kindiki’s Facebook page and established that he published the original video of his address in Witu, Lamu County, on 15 June 2023.
In the original video, Kindiki made the statement featured in the clip in question at minute 17:44. He addressed rogue government officers whom he cautioned that their days were numbered.
Unlike the claim, Kindiki addressed rogue government officers and not President Ruto as alleged. Additionally, the original video was published in June 2023, which precedes the July 2024 Cabinet dismissal.
The video was also published here and here.
PesaCheck examined a video on TikTok, supposedly of the former CS, Ministry of Interior and National Administration Kithure Kindiki, reacting to President Ruto’s decision to dismiss his cabinet and found it FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
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This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Rodgers Omondi and edited by PesaCheck chief copy editor Stephen Ndegwa.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen Wainainah.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
