This tweet with a photo supposedly of Kenyan Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua at Sagana State Lodge in Nyeri County, is ALTERED.

The photo depicts Gachagua serving food, dressed in a skirt and blouse.

“Sagana was successful,” the tweet reads.

On 5 August 2023, President William Ruto embarked on a five-day working tour of the Mt Kenya region accompanied by Gachagua and other politicians.

A day later, the President hosted locals at the Sagana State Lodge and treated them to a meal of rice and meat, in fulfilment of DP Gachagua’s promise during the 2022 election campaigns.

Feasting on rice and meat at Sagana State Lodge was among the goodies Gachagua promised the Mt Kenya residents if Ruto won the presidency in the 9 August 2022 general elections.

But is the photo authentic?

A Google reverse image search established that the original photo is of former Kitui Governor Charity Ngilu.

According to NairobiNews, the photo was taken in August 2017, when Ngilu hosted Kitui residents at her Ithookwe home to celebrate the politician’s gubernatorial victory.

The former governor also shared the photos on Twitter and Facebook on 9 August 2017.

PesaCheck examined a tweet with a photo supposedly of Kenyan Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua at Sagana State Lodge in Nyeri County, 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 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.