The Kisumu governor has been featured in news reports discharging his responsibilities days after the claim was made.
Syndicated story by PesaCheck.
An article claiming that the Kisumu County governor, Anyang’ Nyong’o, has succumbed to prostate cancer is FALSE.
The article, dated 14 July 2021, alleges that Governor Nyong’o was confirmed dead the same morning at his home in Kisumu.
Details about the governor’s medical history — including his prostate cancer diagnosis — are provided, with this information attributed to Nyong’o’s family spokesperson identified as James Onyango.
The article also runs a screenshot of a Citizen TV broadcast whose ticker indicates Nyong’o was hospitalised.
While Professor Nyong’o was indeed diagnosed with prostate cancer in July 2010, PesaCheck has found that the claim that the governor succumbed to the illness has no basis in fact.
The screenshot used in the claim is taken from a January 2019 broadcast, when the Kisumu Governor was readmitted to hospital.
Also, given his prominence as a sitting county governor, Nyong’o’s death would have received widespread media coverage. However, an internet search returns no credible results on the same.
A day after the claim was shared, Nyong’o was featured in a news article carried by The Star which captured his participation in the launch of a new road maintenance technology dubbed claycrete.
The article states that the event took place on 14 July 2021, the day he was supposedly pronounced dead. The governor also posted news of the launch on his Facebook page that same day.
Later on that day, he handed out bursaries and scholarships worth Ksh 250 million to students in the 2020–21 financial year, an event that was both documented on his Facebook page and published in The Star.
Further, he has continued to document his activities on social media, several days after the claim about his death was made.
For example, on 16 July 2021, he attended the Council of Governors Executive Committee consultative meeting with the Board of Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA).
PesaCheck has debunked similar claims about Governor Nyong’o in May 2021 and in January 2019.
PesaCheck has looked into the claim that Kisumu County governor, Anyang’ Nyong’o, has succumbed to prostate cancer, 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 Simon Muli and edited by PesaCheck deputy editor Rose Lukalo.
The article was approved for publication by 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.