No, former Kenyan elections chair not dead as claimed in viral TikTok videos
IN SHORT: The videos allege that president William Ruto has announced the death of former Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission chairperson Wafula Chebukati. This is false; the audio consists of bits and pieces of old speeches by Ruto.
A video going viral on TikTok shows an image of Wafula Chebukati, the former chair of Kenya's Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), with his name and title displayed.
The video is overlaid with the text: "The 'HERO' of 2022 general elections is no more." Below his image, it says: "Finally the evidence is ... " It also shows crying and rolling-eyes emojis.
The video also includes audio that sounds like president William Ruto's voice, stating: "I am deeply saddened to announce the passing on of chairman Wafula Chebukati. The nation will observe a period of three days of mourning. I convey my deepest condolences to all families that are grieving this untimely loss. This is a very sad moment, a moment of great sadness."
The video has over 946,000 views, 539 comments, 343 bookmarks, and 1,210 shares. Two other similar videos have garnered 65,700 and 1,580 views, bringing the total number of views to over 1 million.
The context
The videos refer to Wafula Chebukati, who chaired the IEBC during the 2017 and 2022 general elections. He was a controversial figure who received both strong criticism and praise from different sides of the political divide.
Kenya's supreme court annulled the 2017 elections, leading to a repeat election. In the 2022 elections, four IEBC commissioners publicly disagreed with Chebukati and rejected the results, but the supreme court upheld this election.
The losing opposition was highly critical of Chebukati, while Ruto's winning side praised him. In particular, Ruto referred to him as the hero of the elections, and the video's caption likely refers to this "hero" label by Ruto.
Several claims of Chebukati's death or illness have circulated and been debunked in the past. Is this latest video's claim true? We checked.
Audio of military chief's death announcement
The audio in the TikTok video sounds more real than AI-generated. But there is a noticeable difference when Ruto mentions Chebukati's name, suggesting that the audio was spliced together from different recordings of Ruto's speeches.
A keyword search using Ruto's name and a phrase from the audio - "I'm deeply saddened to announce the passing on of" - leads to video clips of Ruto's announcement of the death of nine military personnel, including former defence forces chief Francis Ogolla, in April 2024.
From these videos, it is clear that the audio of the TikTok video was mainly taken from this announcement by the president. Using timestamps from this video, it is clear that the TikTok audio is spliced from four sections: 0:29 to 0:36 mark, 6:26 to 6:31, 5:16 to 5:24, and 3:58 to 4:05 mark.
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In the first section, Ogolla's name is replaced by a conspicuously different segment in which Ruto says Chebukati's name. This segment was taken from another speech.
The creators of the TikTok video appear to have deliberately spliced and altered the audio to mislead viewers.
Furthermore, no credible news outlets or official government sources have reported Chebukati's death. If the president had made such an announcement, it would have been widely reported and disseminated by many reputable sources.
The claim that Chebukati has died or that Ruto has announced his death is false.
