No, President Kagame has not appointed 19-year-old minister

A post shared multiple times on social networking platforms across East and West Africa claims that Rwandan President Paul Kagame has appointed a 19-year-old teenage as a minister.

This is False, Rwandan authorities confirmed to the Standard Digital Fact Check desk that no such installation had been made.

The claim, shared here, here, here among other places, holds that Kagame appointed Patrick Nkuriza, 19, as the Minister of New Technologies and Development.

"Indeed, this little genius has experienced a meteoric rise to the point of obtaining the baccalaureate at 14-years-old and subsequently obtaining a doctorate in digital tele communication engineering," the post partly reads.

It went on: "Patrick is a real gifted person who has developed several applications which allow his country to make its activities very efficient in many economic fields."

Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Biruta termed the claim as "fake news" and confirmed to the Standard Digital Fact Check desk that no such addition had been made to Kagame's cabinet.

Moreover, there is no docket as the Ministry of New Technologies and Development in the Rwandan government.

An equivalent could be the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology and Innovation which is currently held by 37-year-old Paul Ingabire.

Ms Ingabire was appointed by Kagame in October 2018.

Misleading image

The Standard Digital Fact Check desk, through multiple image reverse search, also established that the photo being peddled as that of Nkuriza belong to British wonder-kid Ramarni Wilfred.

At 17, Wilfred has an IQ higher than Bill Gates and the estimated 160 of Einstein. The London school boy scored 162 in an IQ test at age 11.

This is an initiative of the Standard Group to combat fake news, misinformation and disinformation. If there’s something you want us to look into, email factcheck@standardmedia.co.ke