This Facebook post claiming to show protesters in Kenya storming a police station in Kitale on 12 July 2023 is FALSE.

“Maandamano (protests) Wednesday. Protestors have taken over the main Police Station in Kitale. No one is coming in or going out,” the text accompanying the video reads.

The attached video is of a crowd outside a building chanting “ndovu [elephant]”.

A section of Kenyans took to the streets on 12 July 2023 to demonstrate against the high cost of living and the Finance Act 2023. The protests were organised by the Azimio la Umoja-One Kenya coalition headed by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

The media reported that nine people were killed and that businesses came to a standstill as roads were blocked. A section of the Nairobi Expressway was vandalised.

But is it true that this video was taken on 12 July 2023 during the opposition-led demonstrations?

A close scrutiny of the video, though a bit blurry, shows some writings on the gate where the crowd is gathered. The words “Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Headquarters” are discernable.

According to the institution’s website, DCI headquarters is on Kiambu Road, opposite Kenya Forest Service in Nairobi, not Kitale.

A keyword search shows that the original video was shared on 25 May 2023 when supporters of former Mungiki leader Maina Njenga camped outside the DCI headquarters. Mungiki is a banned organisation.

The crowd gathered at the premises to show their support for Njenga, who had been summoned for questioning.

Njenga was being probed after two firearms and more than 90 rolls of bhang were recovered allegedly from a home linked to him in Ngomongo, which is in Bahati, Nakuru. Police dispersed the mammoth crowd by lobbing tear gas canisters at them.

PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post claiming to show protesters storming a police station in Kitale, Kenya, on 12 July 2023 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 fact-checker Naomi Wanjiku and 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 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.