A Facebook post claiming to show former Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha in a transit bus in Doha a few days before his death is FALSE.

From the photos, the post adds, the consultant surgeon, academic administrator and technocrat looked like he was going through a lot yet nobody bothered to check on him.

“Below are photos of former CS Education Prof. Magoha taken in Doha few days ago. He could have been going through alot but no one reached out to him. This is heartbreaking. May his soul rest in eternal peace,” the text accompanying the photos reads.

Four photos of the late Education CS in a transit bus in a foreign country are attached to the post.

Three of the photos have a watermark with the name “@saddiqueshaban”.

To confirm if indeed those photos are recent, we performed an image reverse search using yandex.com. Our search led us to this Twitter thread by CGTN Africa Sports Editor Saddique Shaban, who is based in Kenya, wrote that in 2019 he shared a flight with Magoha from Japan to Doha.

“He flew business class and I got to see his disgust, disapproval and silent protest as he mingled with the rest of us from the economy class at Doha Airport transit bus. The minister could not believe that he’d been denied diplomatic courtesy at Doha Airport. He sat in the apron bus seat, solemnly thinking about his status and why, perhaps, he wasn’t received in the VIP lounge for despite [sic] being a government minister. Never answered greetings,” Shaban wrote in a Twitter thread on 6 October 2020.

Magoha died on 24 January 2023 at the age of 71 years old at The Nairobi Hospital. The hospital’s CEO, James Nyamongo, said in a statement that the former CS collapsed at his home and was rushed to the hospital. Efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. According to news reports, Magoha died of cardiac arrest.

The late Magoha was appointed as Education CS by former President Uhuru Kenyatta on 26 March 2019 and dispersed his duties until 27 October 2022. Before his demise, Magoha had secured a job at Maseno University as a professor of surgery in the Department of School of Medicine.

PesaCheck has looked into a tweet claiming to show the late former Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha in a transit bus in Doha a few days before his death and finds it to be FALSE.

This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.

By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.

Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.

This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Naomi Wanjiku and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.

The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen Wainainah.

PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.

PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.

Citizens need accurate information to make sound decisions. PesaCheck is Africa’s largest indigenous fact-checking organisation, debunking misleading claims and deciphering the often confusing numbers quoted by public figures in 15 African countries.

Are they lying? Kenya’s 1st fact-checking initiative verifies statements by public figures. A @Code4Kenya and @IBP_Kenya initiative, supported by @Code4Africa.