This photo on Twitter featuring former Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho in a UDA-branded T-shirt has been ALTERED.

The photo captures Joho and Taufiq Balala, the Mombasa County Executive Committee member responsible for Transport, Infrastructure, and Public Works, viewing something on the phone. Joho is in a cap embroidered with his signature ‘Joho 001’ and a yellow T-shirt with the logo of Kenya’s governing party United Democratic Alliance (UDA).

The text accompanying the image reads: “Hassan Joho has seen the light, welcome to UDA mkuu(sir). Hustlers let us welcome him with a RETWEET(sic).”

The photo has also been shared here and here with the same content.

Joho publicly supported Raila Odinga’s Azimio la Umoja’s campaign against William Ruto’s UDA during Kenya’s 2022 general election.

However, as of 3 July 2023, a day after the tweet was shared, there are no reports of the former governor having shifted to the UDA camp.

Furthermore, considering the reference to Balala’s account in the photo, it seems the image was initially shared as a “story” on an Instagram account. In Instagram stories, users can tag each other and allow them to repost the same story on their account.

Upon reviewing Joho’s verified Instagram account, it is evident that the former governor posted an image of himself and Balala on one of his posts. However, in the original photo, Joho’s yellow T-shirt is plain and does not bear any UDA branding.

PesaCheck has reviewed a photo on Twitter featuring former Mombasa Governor Hassan Ali Joho wearing a UDA-branded T-shirt and found it to have been ALTERED.

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 Harriet Ogayoand edited by PesaCheck Senior Copy Editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting Chief Copy Editor Francis Mwaniki.

The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Doreen Wainainah.

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 the 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, visitpesacheck.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.