Interview with Kenya’s Vice President rigged to add false corruption admission

A video clip has been circulating on social media of Kenya’s Vice President William Ruto allegedly admitting a career built on the proceeds of corruption during an interview with the BBC. However, the clip was edited to make it sound like Ruto admitted to financial wrongdoing. In fact, in the original interview, Ruto said he built his career from “nothing”.

On July 22, this Twitter account shared an edited video of an interview Ruto conducted with the BBC, along with a caption that claimed he said, “I developed my career through corruption.”

In the clip, Ruto appears to utter the words, although there is noticeable distortion when the word “corruption” is heard.

The same clip was shared here and here on Facebook.

However, the video was manipulated to add the word “corruption”.

Ruto’s actual words

Using a keyword search, AFP Fact Check found the original version of the interview on the BBC website.

During the interview, Ruto – who is running for president when the country votes on August 9, 2022 – says that he is the best candidate to succeed Uhuru Kenyatta, noting that it would end a long story, in which the leaders of the nation were chosen from an early age circle of elite families.

Ruto is up against three other presidential candidates, but his lead candidate is former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is backed by Kenyatta.

About 85 seconds into the BBC video, the 55-year-old, who describes himself as a ‘hustler’, said: “To put it much more bluntly, I’ve built my career from scratch. And I climbed the ranks and learned the hard way to where I am today.”

Odinga and Ruto have accused each other of corruption (see here and here). Both have made it a central part of their campaigns, arguing that eradicating vice will save the country billions of dollars.

Kenyatta said last year that the East African nation was losing more than 2 billion Kenyan shillings to corruption every day.