A digital card bearing the logo and social media template of Kamba Insights —a news blog—and quoting Makueni Governor Mutula Kilonzo Jnr is fake.
The card which was shared on Saturday, 11 February 2022 via Twitter and made rounds on various Twitter accounts, purported that Makueni Governor Mutula Kilonzo Jnr had said the following words:
I’m not a slave to anyone, I don’t play politics of sycophancy.If you can’t be lead,you can’t lead. I will not be part of people who doesn’t respect the rule of law. As azimio, we used all available avenues to challenge William Ruto win and available avenues to challenge William Ruto win and it was confirmed he’s the duly elected president I’m obligated to work with him and his government
Verification
Scrutiny of the Kamba Insights Facebook, Instagram pages, along with its website did not reveal the digital card. Next, we checked to see if any other news publication had carried the same quote but were unsuccessful.
The digital card has numerous spelling and punctuation errors which is unusual for a professional media organisation and often points to fake news articles. For example, the card uses the word “lead” instead of “led”, does not capitalise “Azimio” which is the name of a prominent political coalition in Kenya. Spaces after full stops are frequently omitted and there is no full stop after the final sentence.
We contacted Mr. Japheth Kilonzo, a manager for the Kamba Insights website, who told us the digital card was fake.
“We did not create that card,” he said.
The news site has also disowned the card on their Facebook page.
Conclusion
Debunk looked into the authenticity of the digital card circulating on social media carrying a photograph of Makueni Governor Mutula Kilonzo Jr, and a quote attributed to him that states he is “not a slave to anyone”. We found that no credible news source had published the alleged quote by the governor and that it was riddled with spelling and punctuation mistakes. We also contacted Kamba Insights and confirmed that they had not published the card. The digital card is fake.
This fact check was published by Debunk.Media with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck and the African Fact-Checking Alliance.
