This image on Facebook purportedly of a downtown Nairobi street teeming with activities amid the 12 July 2023 anti-government protests is FALSE.

The image is of Luthuli Avenue in the Central Business District (CBD) of Kenya’s capital city with people going about their businesses.

The post accompanying the image reads: “Forget the rumours, in Nairobi CBD,its a behive of activities as people go about their businesses as seen here at Luthuli Avenue.Maandamano (protests) effects ziko huko (are in) Nyanza region towns,even in coast most major towns are peaceful.”

The image was also shared on Twitter by Nandi County Senator Samson Cherargei.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga had declared 12 July 2023 the day for countrywide anti-government protests.

However, a Google reverse image search shows that the image was taken in 2019, not 2023 and published in a 19 September article by the Stockholm Environment Institute, a non-profit research and policy organisation.

The article features two images of Luthuli Avenue, showcasing the before and after redevelopment, which includes the addition of pedestrian walkways and a cyclist lane. The image under investigation is of the latter.

The caption attributes the image to Mark Ojal, a Twitter user, and provides a link to the original post, proof that the image was initially used in 2019.

“When we invest in #streets as public spaces we invest directly in people — health & wellbeing, urban safety & security, prosperity & equality. We #breathelife into people, dead streets, declining businesses & decaying inner cities,” wrote Ojal when he posted the photo in 2019.

The tweep reshared the image on Twitter, adding that it was taken during an inclusive urban design project in Nairobi.

PesaCheck has examined the image purportedly of a street in Nairobi teeming with activities amid the 12 July 2023 anti-government protests and found 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 senior fact-checker Simon Muliand edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.

The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck’s 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 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.