Old TV interview with Kenyan deputy president about land rights shared out of context

The clip, which shows Ruto in an interview with broadcast journalist Jeff Koinange, was published on Facebook on September 17, 2021. 

“SHOCKING PAST VIDEO OF DP WILLIAM RUTO,” the title of the Facebook post reads. “All tribes (Kisiis, Luhyas, et al) living in KITALE (Trans Nzoia County), will have to MOVE OUT because Kitale BELONGS to the KALENJINS (Pokots, Sabaot, Cherangany, etc)...”

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Screenshot taken on February 16, showing the misleading Facebook post

More than 63,000 Facebook users have since viewed the 27-second video clip, which months later has continued to stimulate debate online.

The same video and claim have also circulated on Twitter.

In the video, Ruto can be heard saying: “Who lived where? Whose land is ancestrally whose? For example, the whole of Kitale, the Luhyas, the Kisiis, many of the Kalenjin sub-tribes who were there today would have to move out because that land ancestrally belongs to the Pokot, the Cherangany, the Sengwer, and the Sabaot.”

When Koinange interjects, saying “but that's a little extreme”, Ruto counters him immediately, saying, “It is not extreme, it is in the constitution, I will challenge you to go and read it. That’s it.”

Kenyan politics 

Ruto came into power in 2013 along with President Uhuru Kenyatta who is serving his second and final term in office. With fresh presidential elections slated for August 2022, the 55-years-old deputy president — who served in parliament for several years — has been actively campaigning countrywide in a bid to succeed Kenyatta.

Ruto is likely to face off against four-time presidential contender Raila Odinga, who agreed to a truce with former political opponent Kenyatta. This new alliance has isolated Ruto, who has branded himself as a candidate for the masses and a spokesman for the “hustlers” who are trying to make ends meet in a country ruled by “dynasties”. The Kenyatta and Odinga families have dominated Kenyan politics since independence in 1963.

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President Kenyatta with opposition leader Odinga at the launch of BBI report in 2019 ( AFP / Tony KARUMBA)

The Facebook post describes Ruto as a “mònšter in sheep clothing (sic)” for supposedly calling for the eviction of people from Kitale in Kenya’s Rift Valley, which is often the site of ethno-political violence over land ownership. 

However, this clip was shared out of context. Ruto’s statements in the interview do not promote the idea of evacuating communities in the fertile region in Western Kenya.

Edited video

First, using the old logo of Kenyan broadcaster K24 Television that is visible in the top left-hand corner of the clip, AFP Fact Check conducted a keyword search for “Ruto K24 interview” on YouTube and found a four-part series of interviews on the broadcaster’s page.

A review of the videos showed the clip in the misleading Facebook posts comes from the third recorded interview in the series. The nine-minute long video was uploaded to YouTube on May 13, 2010, about three months before Kenyans approved a draft constitution passed in the parliament to replace the 1963 independence constitution. At the time, Ruto was Kenya’s higher education minister.

Over the course of the interview, Ruto talks about how four provisions in the then-proposed Kenyan constitution could further inflict hardship on poor Kenyans. These provisions included removal of constitutional protection from land ownership, a proposed National Land Commission, constitutional powers for the same commission to look into ancestral land injustices, and the introduction of land taxes.

Ruto on ancestral land provisions

Specifically, the clip extracted from the main interview starts three minutes into the original video, when Ruto gave an example of the potential implications of implementing the proposed provisions on ancestral land injustices.

“Number three, which is much more serious, the constitution now provides for section 67 (2e), says the National Land Commission on its own initiative or through a complaint will now begin to look at ancestral land injustices,” Ruto said.

“To me, we are taking this country the wrong direction because in Rift Valley, for example, if you begin to talk about who lived where, whose land is ancestrally whose... For example, the whole of Kitale, the Luhyas, the Kisiis, many of the Kalenjin sub-tribes who are there today would have to move out because that land ancestrally belongs to the Pokot, the Cherangany, the Sengwer, and the Sabaot.”

Ruto further argued that with the provision, the age-long clashes over ancestral lands in the Rift Valley would then be backed by law.

“We are underestimating the problem we are going to create on the land chapter. And believe you me, I do not want to be party, and I do not want to be on the side of the leaders who presided over the impoverishment of other Kenyans, and over creating a confusion in this country that is going cause a total resettlement of Kenyans and I do not want to be part of that bandwagon,” he said.

Despite Ruto's pushbacks against the contentious land provisions, they made it into the country's 2010 constitution with no amendments since then. Although Kenyatta initiated the process of changing dozens of provisions to the 2010 constitution last year, the legality of his bid is still under review by Kenya's supreme court after two lower courts ruled they were unconstitutional. Part of these changes aim to create the posts of prime minister and two deputies, as well as an official opposition leader and the expansion of parliament with 70 new constituencies.