This image on Twitter supposedly of Kenyan President William Ruto holding a baton is ALTERED.

The image is of Ruto in a dark grey suit with a rose pinned on the lapel and holding a white baton. A blurred-out crowd is in the background.

The text accompanying the image has a satirical take on reported police brutality against Kenya’s anti-government protesters and the harassment of journalists.

A reverse image search shows that the original image was altered to superimpose the picture of Ruto’s head on the portrait of Daniel Moi, Kenya’s second President.

Among the search results is a picture in this 4 February 2020 Financial Times article, whose caption says it depicts President Moi during Kenya’s 34th Independence Day celebrations on 12 December 1997. The image is credited to Reuters photographer George Mulala.

Another article by The Star corroborates this evidence.

PesaCheck has examined the image, supposedly of Kenyan President William Ruto holding a baton, and found it to be 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 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.