This video on Facebook supposedly of the arrest of Embakasi East Member of Parliament (MP) Paul Ongili, alias Babu Owino, at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on 18 July 2023 is FALSE.

The clip shows police officers arresting Babu Owino despite resistance from persons believed to be the legislator’s lawyers.

The text accompanying the video reads: “Babu Owino Arrested At Jkia On His Arrival from Mombasa! This Comes Hours Before Raila Odinga Leads Maandamano from Wednesday to Friday.”

The video was shared online after reports that the MP had been arrested at JKIA on arrival from Mombasa on 18 July 2023.

But is the video authentic?

We performed a keyword search on YouTube and established that the video is from 27 September 2017.

According to Citizen TV, the video was taken at Milimani Law Courts when the legislator was arrested shortly after being granted bail.

The video was also published on the MP’s Facebook account on the same date.

PesaCheck examined a video on Facebook supposedly of the arrest of Embakasi East Member of Parliament (MP) Paul Ongili, alias Babu Owino, at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on 18 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 Rodgers Omondi 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, 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.