A Facebook post claiming that Njuguna Wanjiku, the Kiambaa member of parliament, is not a registered voter in the constituency is FALSE.

Shared on the eve of the 15 July 2021 parliamentary by-election, the post adds that Wanjiku would not cast his vote even though video footage showed him doing so at Thimbigua Primary School.

Wanjiku, who contested on a United Democratic Alliance (UDA) party ticket, was declared winner of the by-election by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) after garnering 21,773 votes. Ruling Jubilee Party’s Kariri Njama came second with 21,263 votes.

Wanjiku was sworn in at the National Assembly in Nairobi on 4 August 2021.

The Kiambaa parliamentary seat fell vacant following the death of the sitting MP, Paul Koinange, due to COVID-19 complications on 31 March 2021.

According to the IEBC, there is no requirement for a person to be registered as a voter in a particular constituency in order to vie for any elective position but rather the requirement is that you must be registered as a voter anywhere in Kenya.

In an email response to PesaCheck, the acting IEBC secretary/CEO, Marjan Hussein Marjan, dismissed the claim that Wanjiku is not a registered voter in Kiambaa constituency as false.

“The commission wishes to notify you that John Njuguna Wanjiku of UDA is a registered voter in Kiambaa constituency — Thimbigua Primary School polling centre, and voted in polling station number 2,” wrote Marjan.

PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post claiming that Kiambaa MP Njuguna Wanjiku is not a registered voter in the constituency 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 Chief Copy 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.