False and Misleading: The Building in the Viral X Post Is Not From Rwanda as Implied but From Kenya.
A post by Roja Maibo on X (formerly Twitter) comparing malls in Uganda and Rwanda contains contextual errors that are misleading to the netizens
The post has the potential to spark an online exchange between members of the two East African countries, as seen in the comment section of Maibo’s publication.
In the post, which has garnered 575.5K views, Maibo captioned two images:
“Malls in Uganda vs Malls in Rwanda”, implying a big difference in the infrastructure development of Uganda compared to that of Rwanda.
Facts.
Indeed, the picture on the left of the post showing a modern orange-themed mall is from Uganda, and it is called the Arena Mall, located in Nsambya, Makindye, Kampala. However, the picture on the right of the post, which Maibo claims to be from Rwanda, is located in Kenya.
Evidence
Looking at the picture, we noticed the building is commercially painted green with the words Safaricom, a major mobile network operating company in Kenya and Ethiopia.
The building also has an M-Pesa agent shop. M-Pesa, a money transacting service, is common in most East African countries other than Kenya and Ethiopia, as partnerships with MTN in those countries as in the case of Rwanda. Safaricom and M-Pesa are operating in partnership with MTN Rwanda, and it would not be possible for them to directly advertise their presence as an independent network company. MTN Rwanda provides roaming services to Safaricom customers
To narrow down which country this is, we downloaded the picture and did a Google Reverse Image Search, and we traced the photo on the right of the post back to a Kenyan photo series as seen here, here, and here, confirming the structure is not in Rwanda as implied.
While on dreamstime a photo website with the image, we noticed the caption of the picture as “Shopping street in Namanga, Kenya. NAMANGA, KENYA – OCTOBER 20, 2014 : Shopping street in Namanga. Namanga is a town lying on the border between Kenya and Tanzania in Kajiado District, Rift Valley Province,” meaning the building is actually in Kenya and not Rwanda or Ethiopia.
Looking closely at the picture, we also noticed the vehicles in front of the building, namely the first green car’s number plate as KAQ 141E and the other “pick-up” as KZD 892, which is found in Kenya.
The post attempts to mislead by falsely attributing the photo to Rwanda to provoke comparisons and reactions from the online community.
Verdict
The post is false and misleading. It misrepresents a Kenyan building as being in Rwanda for an infrastructural comparison. Ignore the post. Always verify images and their context before concluding.