Syndicated story by PesaCheck.

This Facebook post claiming Kariri Njama, the Jubilee Party aspirant in the Kiambaa by-elections, is offering to campaign for Deputy President (DP) William Ruto in Mt Kenya is FALSE.

“I will campaign for William Samoei Ruto in Mt Kenya even if it means using my personal resources. He must and he will be sworn in as 5th President,” the Facebook post reads.

DP Ruto is eying the presidency in 2022.

However, the account used to share the post is not the legitimate Facebook account of the politician. Njama has flagged the Facebook page as an imposter.

“My dear people, there’s this FAKE ACCOUNT THAT’S GIVING FALSE INFORMATION-KINDLY BE WARNED ITS AS FAKE AS IT APPEARS!! Please don’t be mislead by their desperate moves to bring confusions!! [sic]” Njama wrote on his official Facebook page.

Njama’s official Facebook page has 34,990 followers and 30,672 likes whereas the fake page has only 1,675 followers and 1,701 likes.

Njama’s official Facebook page was created on 10 June 2016, whereas the imposter Facebook page was created on 17 July 2021.

Njama emerged second in the hotly-contested Kiambaa Constituency by-elections. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) declared John Njuguna as the new Kiambaa Member of Parliament (MP)-elect on 16 July 2021. The Kiambaa by-elections were held on 15 July 2021, following the death of the area MP Paul Koinange who succumbed to COVID-19 related complications.

PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post claiming that the Jubilee Party aspirant in the Kiambaa by-elections, Kariri Njama, will campaign for Deputy President William Ruto in Mt Kenya, and finds it to be 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.

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 Naomi Wanjiku and edited by PesaCheck Chief Copy Editor Rose Lukalo. The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Enock Nyariki.

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.