A press release purportedly sent out by the Inspector General of Police, Hilary Mutyambai, condemning the Kahawa West demolitions is FAKE.

Mr Mutyambai, in the fake press release shared on Facebook, allegedly condemns the extrajudicial killings in the country, which “bear the hallmark of sabotage orchestrated to tarnish” the image of the police.

“Attention of the National Police Service (NPS) has been drawn to a series of killings of innocent civilians by rogue police officers,” reads part of the press release dated 25 August 2021.

“These killings, the most recent ones being the Kahawa West incident, bear the hallmark of sabotage orchestrated to tarnish the image of the service by killing innocent civilians,” it adds.

Mutyambai allegedly directs both the Internal Affairs Unit of NPS and Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to investigate, arrest, and prosecute those responsible for the Kahawa West demolitions.

The press release adds that the NPS will create a unit to oversee lawful demolitions to avoid loss of lives in future.

Mutyambai purportedly concludes by reassuring Kenyans that the NPS will set things right and prosecute those involved in the Kahawa West incident.

Though the logo on the press release matches other press releases by the NPS, and the signature appears similar, the police have dismissed it as “fake”.

“This press release circulating on social media purporting to be issued and signed by the @IG_NPS is fake. We urge members of the public to ignore,” the NPS posted on their Twitter account.

General Service Unit (GSU) police officers were on Wednesday, 25 August 2021, deployed to Kahawa West in Nairobi to control demonstrations following the demolition of business stalls.

The traders protested the demolitions of their stalls, claiming they had not been given notice and hence, lost property worth millions of shillings. According to the locals, two people lost their lives during the demonstrations.

Kiambu police boss Ali Nuno said officers intervened as the situation was quickly getting out of control and demonstrators blocked a road as others looted. He added that the respective authorities would investigate the incident.

PesaCheck has looked into a press release shared on Facebook purportedly from the Inspector General of Police, Hilary Mutyambai, condemning the Kahawa West demolitions 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 Naomi Wanjiku 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.