By Victor Mboya
On 26 July 2022, two weeks to the August 9 election, the 2022 presidential debate took place.
Of the two leading candidates, only William Ruto, who heads the United Democratic Alliance party and the Kenya Kwanza coalition of parties, attended. The other frontrunner, Raila Odinga, who leads the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition party ,and the Orange Democratic Movement party, chose not to attend. Prof George Wajackoyah of the Roots Party similarly chose not to attend, leaving his debate opponent, David Mwaure of the Agano Party, to address the nation alone.
Soon after, an image of Raila Odinga watching William Ruto at the debate on television circulated on social media. We checked if the picture was genuine.
A reverse image search shows the image was doctored. The original picture was contained in an article on SportsBrief, a sports website. The article embedded a tweet from Philip Etale, who is the communications director for the Orange Democratic Movement party, which Odinga leads.
The picture was one of four that show Odinga watching a football match between English clubs Arsenal and Manchester City, not William Ruto at the debate. It was shared online on 1 January 2022, nearly seven months before the presidential debate took place.
The image of Raila watching Ruto at the debate is clearly doctored.
