Video shows protest in Kenya, not a demonstration against Togolese president

Published on July 21, 2025 at 12:40
5 min read
By Monique NGO MAYAG, AFP Senegal, AFP Nigeria
Translation and adaptation Oluseyi AWOJULUGBE

Togo has witnessed major anti-government protests that the police have repressed since late June. A video widely shared on social media claims to show a large turnout at one of the demonstrations. However, the claim is false; the video was filmed in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city. The East African country has also recently witnessed large-scale protests, with citizens demanding the resignation of President William Ruto.

“This is Togo right now. Citizens protesting as the Togolese President Faure changes the constitution to make him president for life, where citizens will no longer participate in voting for the president,” reads the caption of a Facebook video shared more than 690 times since it was published on June 28, 2025.

The video attached to the post shows a crowd marching on a highway with loud noises in the background and smoke rising from items burning on the road.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post, taken on July 16, 2025

The video has also appeared elsewhere in posts shared on Instagram and a Facebook account belonging to a media organisation in Nigeria.

AFP Fact Check has previously debunked the claim in French.

In June, several protests, which were violently repressed by the police, shook the streets of Lome, the Togolese capital, resulting in the deaths of at least seven people (archived here).

Citizens protested the arrest of government critics, rising electricity prices and constitutional reform that moved the country to a parliamentary system of government where President Faure Gnassingbe occupies the highest office (archived here). The opposition argues that the reform will allow the president to remain in power indefinitely.

Swahili audio

Some comments under the post talk about the need for a change in Africa’s leadership structure, a sign that people believe the claim. However, others mention that the video was filmed in Kenya, not Togo.

An AFP fact-checker based in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, confirmed that some of the words heard in the video were in Swahili, a language spoken in East and Central African countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Unlike English and French, Swahili is hardly spoken in West Africa, where Togo is located.

For example, the words “wana retaliate” are heard in the 16th second of the video. “Wana” in Swahili means “in the process of”.

Further evidence reveals the video does not show demonstrations in Togo.

Kenyan protests

A reverse image search was conducted on keyframes from the video using Google Lens. Among the search results was a YouTube link to the same footage, which was posted on June 28, 2025, without a caption (archived here).

The YouTube video includes a watermark for a TikTok account called “@makofonyo3”, where the original video was posted three days earlier (archived here). Again, it contained no details of what the clip depicted.

However, a similar video from the same account was also shared on June 25, 2025, showing crowds marching along the four-lane highway, except this time a large road sign is visible, giving an indication of where it was filmed (archived here).

Screenshot showing the highway sign seen in the video taken on July 17, 2025

Some of the words written on the gantry sign include directions for “Nairobi”, “Kamiti Road”, an urban road in Nairobi, “Garden City”, a shopping centre located along Thika Road, a major highway, also called A2, and “Mombasa”, a coastal city in Kenya.

The highway sign was geolocated to Thika Road in Nairobi using Google Earth (archived here).

Screenshot showing the highway sign seen in the video and satellite imagery on Google Earth, taken on July 17, 2025

AFP Fact Check matched various landmarks on Thika Road, like buildings and bridges, to both the video in the false posts and imagery from Google Earth.

Screenshots matching features seen in the video (top) to satellite imagery on Google Earth, taken on July 17, 2025

Furthermore, by expanding the view on Google Earth, we established that the video falsely linked to Togo was filmed from alongside the gantry on Thika Road during protests in June 2025 (archived here).

Kenyan protests

On June 25, protesters took to the streets of Nairobi, Mombasa, and other counties across the country to mark the first anniversary of the deaths of 60 people killed when thousands of youths stormed the parliamentary chamber in 2024, demanding Ruto’s resignation.

The anniversary marches were violently repressed by the police and rekindled anti-government protests (archived here).

Several Kenyan media outlets mentioned Thika Road in their reporting, including Citizen TV Kenya (archived here). The Daily Nation published photos in which the four-lane highway can be seen several times (archived link here).

Screenshot showing an image of Thika Road published by The Daily Nation in Kenya, taken on July 21, 2025

Following the incident, the Kenyan government said it “thwarted a coup d’etat” and denounced “terrorism disguised as protest” (archived here).

Since then, Ruto has continued to warn those who would “overthrow” the government. The United Nations and other human rights groups have criticised the violence witnessed during the latest protests (archived here).

Ruto, who was elected in 2022 after campaigning on behalf of the poorest, has faced significant opposition to his economic policies since 2024.

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