A Twitter user posted a photo that he claimed showed police vehicles outside the former Internal Security Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi’s home. 

On the night of 8 February 2023, news broke that there was an alleged police raid at Matiang’is. One journalist, however, questioned why no photographs of the policemen who stalked Matiang’i had been published, and media reports have continued to question whether police visited the home.

Soon after, news reports showed former Prime Minister Raila Odinga,  a lawyer and other politicians arriving at the scene. 

The Inspector General of Kenya’s National Police Service and the head of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, however, denied any involvement in the night’s events. 

We performed a Google reverse image search which revealed that the same image was published by the Standard newspaper in September 2020, more than two years before the events of 8 February 2023. 

The picture showed police in an unsuccessful attempt to arrest Kapseret Member of Parliament (MP) Oscar Sudi. 

The headline reads, “Night of drama as police camp in MP Sudi’s home, fail to arrest him”.

Video footage from media coverage that night also shows the same police vehicles. 

It is clear the photo shared on social media does not show police cars waiting outside Dr. Fred Matiangi’s house in February 2023. 

Conclusion

After news broke that police officers were outside the Nairobi home of the former Interior Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Fred Matiang’i, a user on Twitter posted a photo on Twitter claiming it showed vehicles of the police officers who had come to Matiangi’s home.

A reverse image search revealed that the photo was originally taken in 2020, when police tried and failed to arrest Oscar Sudi, the MP for Kapseret, and not in 2023. The context in the picture has been used is false.

This fact check was published by Debunk.media with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck and African Fact-Checking Alliance.