A viral video alleging that Deputy President William Ruto was slapped when he visited Burma Market last week is false.
The video that has been shared widely on Twitter and in WhatsApp forums indicated that the DP was whisked away after he was slapped by rowdy youth.
A Twitter user by the name Kenneth called on the inspector general of police to investigate.
“So someone slapped DP Ruto in Burma. The IG should investigate this incident, hatutaki vujo. Video courtesy” read part of his post.
The same Video was shared by Peter Kiptoo who said such intolerance was a recipe for mayhem.
The Star fact-check desk however established that this was not the case.
We reached out to several reporters who were on the ground.
NTV’s senior political reporter Kennedy Mureithi confirmed that DP Ruto is seen in the video covering his left ear, not because he had been slapped.
Mureithi said When he arrived at the market, some of the vehicles on his convoy had mounted speakers that were playing loud music.
When the DP alighted from his car, as he made his way to the entrance of the market, he passed next to one of the cars with the speakers and thus was covering his ear to shield the noise.
With regards to the commotion witnessed, it is normal for security details to shield DP from unnecessary interruptions and thus there was nothing unusual with that.
However, on the sides of the events, other videos of pro-BBI youth had tried to interrupt the DP by chanting the anti-Ruto slogans circulated on social media.
As a result, the video was falsely shared to indicate that DP Ruto had been slapped by the youth.
The Star concludes the claim in the video as FALSE and MISLEADING.
This story was produced by The Star in partnership with Code for Africa’s iLAB data journalism programme, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie.
