ALTERED: This video of President Ruto announcing death of his predecessor is doctored
This TikTok video claiming to show Kenya’s President William Ruto announcing the death of his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, is ALTERED.
In the video, Ruto appears to say, “I am deeply saddened to announce the passing on of Uhuru Kenyatta.”
Images of Kenyatta are featured in the video.
A Google reverse image search of screenshots of the video reveals that Ruto was announcing the death of Kenya’s military Chief Francis Ogolla, and not the former president.
The video was also published on the State House YouTube channel and by several media houses in 2024, following Ogolla’s death in a plane crash. The incident was widely reported by the media in Kenya and abroad.
Meanwhile, there is no credible report online corroborating the claim of Kenyatta’s death. Instead, old reports debunking previous false death claims about the former president are available.
The media also reported Kenyatta’s public appearance at a wedding after the claim video was posted.
Meanwhile, the Kiswahili text in the video is a scam. It reads: “Have you received this money? Gen Z have done to the Hustler Nyota Fund system what they did to the previous system. Right now, people are withdrawing money from it. Just dial 811330#, accept the prompt sent to you, then dial 811168# and select option 1, followed by option 3 to withdraw the money to M-Pesa. Don’t struggle when there’s free money here”.
However, the government Hustler Fund and National Youth Opportunities Towards Advancement (NYOTA) project are accessed using the official USSD shortcode *254#, as shown on the genuine websites.
NYOTA has previously warned the public about similar scams and maintained that *254# is the official application channel.
PesaCheck looked into a TikTok video claiming to show Kenya’s President William Ruto announcing the death of his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, and found it to be ALTERED.
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.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here's more information on PesaCheck's methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Flavia Nassaka and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Mary Mutisya and 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.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.