Nairobi News

President Uhuru Kenyatta was labelled ‘ignorant’ after tweeting an embarrassing congratulatory message to Vivian Cheruiyot who won a gold medal in the women’s 10,000 meters final on Monday.

The head of state, in a tweet that was still available on his timeline by press time Tuesday, erroneously referred to the race as the 10,000 meters women’s marathon.

“Congratulations @VivianCheruiyot on bagging Kenya it’s first Gold Medal in the 10,000m women’s marathon #IAAFWorldChampionships (sic),” read the tweet.

For starters, the women’s marathon is different from the women’s 10,000 meters –something that his handlers seem not to notice.

Also, the tweet seems to imply that this was the first time Kenya had won the 10,000 meters women’s race as well the women’s marathon.

Twitter user Bernard Kiarie said: Woi..@UKenyatta @VivianCheruiyot My President 10,000M and Women Marathon are 2 different races, while Estifanos Melkamu said, “@UKenyatta @VivianCheruiyot there is no such thing called 10000m marathon.”

Ustadh Kapchanga simply said: “embarrassing.”

To be fair, though, the president’s social media is run by employees and not by him personally.

But President Kenyatta is not alone, when Nicholas Bett stormed into the finishing line winning Kenya her first gold medal in in the 400 meters men’s hurdles, Elgeyo Marakwet senator Kipchumba Murkomen sent a congratulatory message to Nicholas Biwott, a one-time strongman in the Kanu regime.

He has since corrected the error.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The initial version of this story contained editing errors which have since been rectified.