Syndicated story by PesaCheck.

A digital card branded like Kenyans.co.ke with a quote attributed to the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC-Kenya) Party leader, Martha Karua, is FAKE.

The card was shared on Facebook and is dated 18 August 2021.

It reads, “The Deputy President cannot stop us from forming coalitions or alliances. He is also free to form one with Museveni’s NRM.”

The post accompanying the quote quips, “Iron lady got zero chills.”

Ruto has visited Uganda at the invitation of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni a couple of times. In August 2021, reports said he was blocked from travelling to Uganda for another meeting with Museveni.

The fake quote was shared following this incident and also followed a meeting that brought together Karua, Mwangi Kiunjuri, The Service Party (TSP) leader and Gatundu South member of parliament, Moses Kuria, to form a Mt Kenya region caucus.

However, the news article by Kenyans.co.ke makes no mention of the alleged quote, and neither is there information about it elsewhere on the publication’s website, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Similarly, there is no information about the digital card or the quote in question on Karua’s Facebook or Twitter timelines, where she regularly comments about topical issues.

In a Facebook post on 23 August 2021, Kenyans.co.ke disowned the digital card in question and asked the public to ignore it.

“This post did not emanate from our media house. It does not conform to the in-house branding rules and did not go through the multiple approval checks set in place to prevent misreporting. We, therefore, flag it as FAKE. For official communication from Kenyans.co.ke, always visit the official website and verified social media pages,” read the Facebook post.

PesaCheck has looked into the digital card shared on Facebook containing the branding of Kenyans.co.ke and a quote attributed to the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC-Kenya) Party leader, Martha Karua, and finds it to be FAKE.

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.