ALTERED: This video of Prime Minister Barre criticizing President Mohamud’s administration is doctored.
The clip is from 2019 when Barre, the then Electoral Commission chief, criticised President Farmaajo
This video on X (formerly Twitter) claiming to show Somalia’s Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre criticizing the federal government on regional states’ election and political issues in 2024 is ALTERED.
The Somali text accompanying the video states, “breaking news: Prime Minister Hamza told President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud the truth.”
The video in question shows Hamza Abdi Barre stating that the Jubbaland state election commission can decide the election dates and who will oversee them, but actions that contradict both the Jubbaland and federal constitutions are emerging.
Barre also said in the video “The federal government, which is supposed to work on stabilizing the country and reconciliation, seems to be creating instability instead. I strongly congratulate Puntland, which has been targeted but has refused to engage in anything illegal. A conflict has been instigated among the people in the Southwest state, and it will take time to bring them back together.”
The claim surfaced during the National Consultative Council Meeting held in Mogadishu in October 2024, where federal and state leaders discussed election, politics, and security.
To verify the authenticity of the clip, the Federation of Somali Journalists (FESOJ) conducted a Google reverse image search on the keyframe of the video, which revealed that the video has been online since 2019.
At that time, Hamza Abdi Barre was the chairman of the Jubbaland Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (JIBEC), while Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo was the President of Somalia. His criticisms were directed at the Farmaajo’s government and not President Mohamud as the claim suggests.
SSTV’s YouTube channel uploaded the original video on 9 July 2019 with the headline, “The Chairman of the Jubaland Election Committee spoke about the letter from the federal government.”
In the original video, Barre also criticized other political and security events in the country in 2019.
Federation of Somali Journalists (FESOJ) has examined a video on Twitter claiming to show Somalia’s Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre criticizing the federal government on regional states’ election and political issues in October 2024 and finds it to have been ALTERED.
This fact-check was produced by Federation of Somali Journalists (FESOJ) under the African Fact-Checking Incubator programme, with support from PesaCheck, Code for Africa’s fact-checking initiative, and the African Fact-Checking Alliance(AFCA)
