Miscaptioned clip gives false impression Kenya’s top judge threatened the president

The video has been shared more than 1,500 times on TikTok since it was posted on January 13, 2024.

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Screenshot showing the false post, taken on February 5, 2024

“I made you the president. If you joke with me, I will remove you from office,” reads a text overlay attributed as a quote to Koome.

In the 4’14” clip, Koome is addressing the press while standing in front of a Kenyan flag.

The clip was also shared on TikTok here.

Judicial tiff

Ruto triggered anger last month when he accused some Kenyan judicial officers of working corruptly with his political opponents to derail his policies. He also criticised those who went to court to stop his administration’s projects (archived here). 

Courts have prevented the implementation of some of his administration’s policies including a housing levy and the deployment of Kenyan police to Haiti for a peacekeeping mission. 

On January 26, 2024, a high court in Nairobi ruled against Ruto’s plan to deploy police to Haiti for a United Nations-backed mission to fight criminals in the gang-plagued country (archived here).

The ruling came just a couple of hours after Kenya’s court of appeal dismissed the government’s attempt to continue collecting a 1.5-percent monthly levy to fund the affordable housing project. The scheme already had been ruled unconstitutional by the high court (archived here).

Ruto vowed to defy the court orders he claimed were imposed by corrupted members of the judiciary who purportedly had accepted bribes to cripple his policies (archived here). 

In response, Koome warned that Ruto was setting up the country for “anarchy” by not respecting the judiciary’s independence.

However, Koome did not threaten to unseat Ruto as claimed in the TikTok posts.

False caption

Through a reverse image search, we found the original clip (archived here) on the YouTube channel of the digital news site Uzalendo News. It shows Koome presiding over outgoing chief registrar Anne Amadi’s farewell party on January 12, 2024.

In her speech, Koome said that the judiciary would not be intimidated and that the institution was strongly opposed to corruption. She called on anyone with evidence of judicial fraud to report it through proper channels.

AFP Fact Check watched the original video. At no point did Koome threaten to have Ruto removed.

Kenya’s Supreme Court, led by Koome, unanimously upheld Ruto’s presidential win in September 2022. As part of their ruling, the judges issued a scathing statement against opposition leader Raila Odinga’s accusations of vote rigging.