A video shared on TikTok showing President William Ruto lecturing Azimio coalition members of parliament is false.

“Wacheni upuzi (Stop being foolish),” he says to loud applause.  

“Hiyo mchezo mnaendelea sisi tunataka kila kiongozi ambaye amechaguliwa muanze kupanga mambo ya wananchi, siyo kupanga mambo yenu, ya vyeo, sijiui na…shame on you. Na mimi nataka niwaambie ndugu zangu.  Nimeenda sehemu ya Nyanza, kwa sababu mimi nataka ieleweke Kenya ya kwamba wananchi ya Kenya, kupitia demokrasia, walienda kwa kura, wakapiga kura na wakakupatia kazi. Sisi tukapatiwa kazi ya kuendesha serikali. Wale ndugu zangu wengine wakapatiwa kazi ya kuendesha upinzani.    

 (That game you are continuing, we want every elected leader to start organizing the people’s affairs, not your gains and positions, shame on you. And I want to tell you, my brothers, I have gone to Nyanza Region because I want it understood in Kenya that the people of Kenya democratically went to the polls, voted and gave us a mandate. We were given the mandate to govern. They were given the mandate to advance opposition),” Ruto adds.

A caption in the video reads, “Babu Owino na Kioni wacheni upuzi, wacheni ujinga” (Babu Owino and Kioni stop silliness, stop foolishness). 

Babu Owino and Jeremiah Kioni are Members of Parliament from Raila Odinga’s Azimio coalition. They  both support Odinga’s contention that William Ruto did not win the election.

Does the video show Ruto criticising Jeremiah Kioni and Babu Owino?

A search on YouTube for the words “Ruto” and “Wacheni Upuzi” discovered that the events depicted in the video took place on 15 January 2023, and were widely reported in the media.

Conclusion

A video shared on TikTok seems to show William Ruto castigating two lawmakers from the opposition Azimio coalition, Jeremiah Kioni and Babu Owino. A search for the unusual Swahili rebuke, “wacheni upuzi”, combined with Ruto’s name on YouTube readily brought up the original video.

Ruto was rebuking county assembly members in Kericho County, after disagreements over leadership roles in the county assembly led to physical fights. He did not address Babu Owino or Jeremiah Kioni. The video is false.

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