A Facebook post with an alleged image of a broadcast by Al Jazeera claiming the Taliban has rejected Kenya’s Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) is FALSE.

BBI is an initiative of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition stalwart Raila Odinga.

The proposed BBI sought, among other things, to create the position of prime minister, increase the number of constituencies at least by 70 and amend the structure of devolved government through the establishment of the Ward Development Fund (WDF). BBI was proposed in the aftermath of the polarised 2017 elections, occasioned by the annulment of the first election results.

However, the Court of Appeal on 20 August 2021 upheld a High Court decision that ruled that the proposed bill is unconstitutional.

The post in question claims that the Taliban have also rejected the BBI. It is accompanied by an image of the group’s spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, purportedly addressing the media on the same.

Taliban is an Islamist religious-political movement and military organisation in Afghanistan that took over control of the country after the United States withdrew its troops, deployed in 2001.

Did the Taliban reject BBI, and Al Jazeera air such a story as claimed by the post? Google reverse search reveals that the image in this post was taken when the Taliban held their first news conference to address human rights concerns after the group took over Afghanistan.

Additionally, a review of the Al Jazeera website shows the media house did not air the story as claimed in the Facebook post.

PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post with an image of an Al Jazeera broadcast claiming the Taliban has rejected Kenya’s Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) 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 Leah Kahunde Ndung’u 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.