Photo shows Kenya’s opposition leader hospitalised in 2017, not after March 2023 protest

"Verified reports reaching me from highly reliable sources indicate that Azimio Leader Raila Odinga complained of severe chest pains before fainting immediately after addressing residents of Pipeline Estate (sic)," reads a tweet published on March 30, 2023.

Pipeline Estate is a residential suburb in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

Image

Screenshot showing the misleading post, taken on April 18, 2023

The photo shows Odinga lying in what looks like a hospital bed while being attended to by medical staff.

The same claim was shared elsewhere on Twitter as well as on Facebook.

Anti-government protests

Odinga lost the presidential election in August 2022 to William Ruto by a slim margin. Since then, tensions have been rising between the camps.

In February 2023, Odinga gave Ruto a two-week ultimatum (archived here) to address alleged election fraud in last year's vote and tackle Kenya’s exorbitant living costs, as well as halt the ongoing process of appointing new electoral commissioners.

On March 20, 2023, the opposition leader spearheaded the first public protest (archived here) in Nairobi.

On March 30, his Azimio la Umoja party held (archived here) its third protest rally in Nairobi’s Pipeline estate. Thousands of Kenyans responded to Odinga's call to action and joined marches in Nairobi and other parts of the country. At least three people died (archived here), and businesses and property were damaged.

After two weeks of violent protests, Ruto and Odinga separately announced that they had agreed on April 2 to bipartisan negotiations (archived here) spearheaded by parliament to address the opposition’s concerns.

However, the opposition warned protests would resume if it did not deem the negotiations meaningful.

Old photo

AFP Fact Check already debunked (archived here) the image in the post when it was taken out of context in 2022.

A reverse image search showed that the photo was first published more than five years ago.

The image appeared in Kenyan media reports here and here (archived here and here) when Odinga was hospitalised in 2017 for suspected food poisoning following a series of rallies on Kenya’s coast.

At the time, Odinga was contesting the presidency under the National Super Alliance (NASA) and faced off against former President Uhuru Kenyatta.

There have been no reports in local media of Odinga fainting or falling ill on March 30, 2023, when he hosted a protest rally in Nairobi’s Pipeline estate.

The Azimio la Umoja party told AFP Fact Check that this claim is propaganda, and that "Raila is in good health".

"He did not fall ill during our March 30 rally in Pipeline, Nairobi."