By Eunice Omollo
Kenya’s 2022 presidential elections came to an end on 15th August 2022, after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission‘s chairman declared William Ruto the winner.
It was a difficult afternoon for Wafula Chebukati who declared the results after four of the commission’s commissioners refused to support them.
Nevertheless, he announced that William Ruto, the incumbent deputy president and leader of the United Democratic Alliance party, had won the election.
Ruto was declared the winner with a total of 7,176,121 votes against his main competitor, Raila Odinga, who garnered 6,942,930 votes. Odinga leads the Azimio la Umoja coalition.
Hours after the announcement, celebrations and complaints flowed on social media. Canada-based lawyer, Miguna Miguna, who previously served as a senior adviser to Raila Odinga, tweeted a magazine cover:
“The conman has made history.Made it to the PRESTIGIOUS Times cover as the LONGEST presidential loser. Agwambo Tialala! Raila Tibia!”’
We checked if Odinga’s loss had landed him a spot on the cover of the venerable US magazine.
‘No cover with Odinga’s image’
The KEG Fact-checking desk did a reverse image search. Bing suggested the cover was a fake that had been created from a blank template.
On the top right of the magazine cover is the date 19 July 19 2017. We checked to see if an issue of Time had been published on that day. No cover with Odinga’s image was found from that time.
Whereas issues of the magazine were published on 10 July and 24 July, there was no issue for July 19. Also, neither of the two issues carried a story on Raila Odinga. Time magazine carries all its current and historical articles online.
A search for Raila Odinga on the Time website in 2017 revealed a story titled “The Saga of Kenya’s Disputed Election Is a Good-News Story”, while a search in 2022 revealed a story titled “Kenya Election 2022: Candidates, Issues at Stake”.
The only reference to Kenyan band Sauti Sol on the magazine’s website is a July 2015 article that was published after American president Barack Obama visited the country.
Further, there is no story by Time about Raila Odinga about “The man who will never be president”. Neither is there a writer called Joe Oloo published on Time Magazine’s website. The cover is a fake, just like two other fake covers Africa Check has found.
