Edited video falsely claims to show Kenyan deputy leader admitting rift with president

Two years after Kenyan President William Ruto and his deputy Rigathi Gachagua were voted into office, local media and politicians have been speculating about a spat between the pair. While the men have denied quarrelling, social media posts circulated a video of Gachagua allegedly admitting to problems with Ruto. However, AFP Fact Check found the video is old and has been edited. The original footage was taken before Gachagua became Ruto’s deputy and shows him talking about his squabbles with former president Uhuru Kenyatta.

A TikTok video was shared on Facebook with the words “Ruto has turned against me” in Swahili on May 29, 2024.

The clip has been viewed more than two million times and shows Gachagua addressing a crowd through the roof of a car. He purportedly accuses Ruto of ostracising him.

“William Ruto was a drunk. I rescued him from a bar. I helped him become the president of Kenya. But now he has allied himself with Raila and has turned against me,” Gachagua appears to say.

The same claim was repeated in other Facebook posts (see here and here) and on YouTube.

In recent weeks, Kenyan media reported that Ruto and Gachagua had fallen out (archived here).

For Kenyans, this harks back to the bad blood between Kenyatta and Ruto when the latter was the deputy leader (archived report).

But the video of Gachagua “admitting” to a rift with Ruto is doctored.

Old beef

At first glance, it is clear the audio does not synchronise with the lip movements in the clip – a sign of possible manipulation – where Gachagua is seen in a white cap and patterned shirt.

AFP Fact Check conducted reverse image searches of multiple keyframes from the video and located a photo of Gachagua wearing the same shirt in a Facebook post published by a Kenyan politician on March 16, 2024 (archived here).

The post features several pictures. According to the caption, they were taken when Ruto and Gachagua opened a road in Bomet county in the Rift Valley region.

“Joined H.E. President Dr. William Ruto, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua among other leaders during the official launch of Kyogong-Sigor-Chebunyo-Longisa roads at Kapkesosio, Chepalungu in Bomet,” it says.

A search on Facebook for more details led to Ruto’s official page, which featured  40 minutes of footage from the road opening in March.

Gachagua, wearing the same cap and shirt, addresses the crowd from the motorcade for just over three minutes (23’50”-27’13”). He makes no mention of a rift between him and Ruto, who stands in the foreground wearing a jacket.

An ambulance appears behind Gachagua in both the altered version and original clip on Ruto's page.

Although the camera angles are slightly different, the footage in the misleading video was taken at the official road opening in March that both Ruto and Gachagua attended.

The audio, however, is two years older.

Edited and unrelated

We conducted a Swahili keyword search of Gachagua’s speech in the altered clip and matched it to a YouTube video published in July 2022 when Ruto and Gachagua were campaigning ahead of the general elections that year (archived here).

Many of those at the political rally were wearing yellow, the colour of Ruto and Gachagua’s political party, the United Democratic Alliance (UDA).

In the full-length video of Gachagua’s speech in 2022, he refers to a longstanding rift with Kenyatta, accusing opposition leader Raila Odinga of playing a part in their fallout.

The row was reported widely, including here and here (archived here and here).

The audio from 2022 was also edited to change the context. Gachagua was referring to Kenyatta and not Ruto when he called the former “a drunk” who he had “rescued from a bar”.

Kenyatta’s name was digitally replaced with Ruto’s in the altered clip.