Old clip falsely shared as senior Kenyan politician threatening to expose president

“Ruto we are not fools!! I am ready to step down. This country is being led by a thief. I am ready to speak,” reads the English and Swahili text overlay on a TikTok video published on March 30, 2025.

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Screenshot of the false post, taken on April 4, 2025

The post has been shared more than 500 times.

“How did we get to the situation where there’s impeachment in Nairobi? Let us speak the truth...It’s because of impunity. Because you don’t want to follow the law. We need leaders who can know and appreciate the rule of the law,” Mudavadi says in the clip.

“If we continue making the mistake and saying that now because I’m popular in the streets of Nairobi for this week, then I can disregard the law of the land, then I’m the one who is planting the seed of impeachment. When you’re a governor somewhere, it is not personal property. It is a public office,” he adds.

He goes on to stress that leaders at all levels of society must conduct their activities in accordance with the law, regardless of their position. At the end of the clip, he notes that some leaders are afraid of speaking the truth because they fear social media backlash.

Mudavadi was appointed as the Prime Cabinet Secretary on 27 September 2022, becoming the most senior leader after the president and his deputy (archived here). He doubles as Foreign and Diaspora Affairs cabinet secretary (archived here).

He also assumed interim charge of the public service ministry following the exit of Justin Muturi in April 2025 (archived here).

The video, however, does not show him saying he is ready to resign or threatening to divulge secrets about Ruto.

Old video

AFP Fact Check conducted reverse image searches on keyframes from the video and discovered the false clip was created by splicing two different versions of footage from the same event.

One segment was published on the YouTube channel of Kenyan news outlet NTV on December 14, 2020 (archived here).

“Nairobi is not a private property, Mudavadi tells Sonko,” reads the video’s title.

At the time, Mudavadi was addressing congregants at the Friends Church Quakers in Nairobi during the Covid-19 pandemic, where he spoke about the impeachment of the city's ex-governor Sonko and his subsequent removal from office.

He did not mention Ruto in the footage uploaded to YouTube by NTV.

Comparisons show Mudavadi in the same blazer and grey shirt, with blue, yellow and white drapes in the background.

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Screenshots comparing the false post (left) and the original address published by NTV

A longer version of the address, part of which appears two minutes and fifty seconds into the TikTok video, was published on YouTube by social media news channel Mutembei TV on December 15, 2020 (archived here).

Mudavadi also shared photographs from the service on his X account (archived here).

AFP Fact Check did not find any credible reports suggesting a rift between Mudavadi and Ruto.

In March 2025, the Mudavadi-led ANC party was officially dissolved and merged with Ruto’s UDA to solidify Mudavadi’s position in the Kenya Kwanza ruling coalition (archived here).

Additionally, Mudavadi’s office issued a statement on April 6, 2025, dismissing claims that he was planning to part ways with Ruto (archived here).