Poster advertising youth meeting 'hosted' by Ruto is fabricated

A Facebook post promoting a youth consultative meeting on the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) to be hosted by Kenya’s deputy president, William Ruto, is Fake.

The post was also shared by other Facebook pages, including Kenya Daima and Bigwig Kenya News.

The meeting is set to bring together youth leaders from Nairobi’s Mathare, Kibera and Dagoretti areas, but there is no indication on the poster when this will take place.

Attendees are promised an allowance of Sh20,000 and anyone interested is asked to contact the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lang’ata constituency, Nixon Korir and his Dagoretti South counterpart, John Kiarie, through numbers provided.

The post above the flier appears to throw a jibe at the DP for his position over the BBI report, saying the ‘train’ has already left for a progressive future of Kenya.

“The main agenda for some individuals is to derail Kenya from prosperity and a more united Kenya,” reads the post.

During the recent launch of the BBI report at the Bomas of Kenya, Dr Ruto faulted a number of the proposals contained in it and asked proponents of the report to persuade him, and millions of Kenyans he claimed to represent, otherwise.

“We must strive progressively to have a negotiated constitutional settlement or to arrive at a place where we are all working together building consensus,” he said at the event.

The DP took issue with the proposal to have an ombudsman appointed by the executive to the judiciary, which he termed as a derogation from the independence of the judiciary.

The Facebook group where the poster was shared — Every Hustle Matters — describes itself as the official team organising and campaigning for Dr Ruto’s presidential bid.

However, responding to a query by PesaCheck, Emmanuel Talam, the director of communication in the deputy president’s office, disowned the poster and termed the claim as “nonsense”.

Lang’ata MP Mr Nixon Korir, whose contact is listed in the poster in question, also dismissed the poster as a fabrication.

PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post with a poster promoting a youth consultative meeting on the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) to be hosted by deputy president, William Ruto, and finds it to be fake.