NTV Kenya has disowned the digital card mimicking its branding, and Igathe continues to campaign even after the card was shared.
A digital card shared on Facebook claiming that Jubilee Party’s Nairobi gubernatorial aspirant Polycarp Igathe wrote to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), withdrawing from the race is FAKE.
The card, dated 3 August 2022, is tagged as breaking news and contains NTV Kenya’s branding accompanied by a photo of Igathe.
“Polycarp Igathe writes to IEBC withdrawing from the Nairobi gubernatorial race, says it is needless to embarrass himself on the ballot, urges his supporters to vote for whoever they want,” the message on the digital card reads.
Although the card bears NTV Kenya’s branding, it has not been shared either on the broadcaster’s Facebook page, Twitter account or website, where all its news items are posted.
On 3 August 2022, NTV Kenya flagged the post as fake and asked its users to disregard it.
“The image circulating online, of an alleged Breaking News update on Polycarp Igathe, purportedly from NTV, is not from us. Stand advised,” NTV Kenya posted on Facebook.
We also checked Polycarp Igathe’s Facebook page and Twitter account and did not find any such news.
Instead, we found posts of Igathe sharing his campaign plans.
On 4 August 2022, a day after the news alert was shared, Igathe posted a message on Twitter, urging Nairobi residents to support Azimio la Umoja — One Kenya coalition in the presidential contest, and back him and his running mate, Prof Philip Kaloki, in the gubernatorial race.
We also checked for information about the said notice of withdrawal on IEBC’s website, Facebook page and Twitter account, but the results were negative.
IEBC’s communications manager Tabitha Mutemi said, in response to queries from PesaCheck, that she was unaware of any such notice of withdrawal from Igathe.
A keyword search conducted on the news alert we are debunking revealed that none of credible media outlets had covered such a story.
This is not the first time PesaCheck is debunking a news alert claiming Igathe has pulled out of the 9 August 2022 Nairobi gubernatorial contest. In April 2022, we fact-checked a similar news alert and found it to be fake.
PesaCheck has reviewed a digital card shared on Facebook claiming that Nairobi gubernatorial aspirant Polycarp Igathe has written to IEBC withdrawing from the race and finds it to be FAKE.
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.
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