mugabeIt turns out not just our own respected media personalities are duped by fictional writing. On Tuesday, a blog published made up quotes allegedly from Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and everyone was talking about it. It even started a Twitter war between Kenyans and Zimbabweans.

Our lead story yesterday was on how Kenyans are easily duped, with the Mugabe quotes and recent Donald Trump stories as case studies.

Hours later, The New York Times published a piece on Kenya’s corruption, and included the fake Mugabe quotes. Writer Jeffrey Gettleman, who is also East Africa’s Bureau Chief for NYT, shielded himself from blame by indicating that ‘Mugabe was Quoted’, then linking the original source, which turns out to be a garbage blog.

Even Robert Mugabe, the longstanding ruler of Zimbabwe, hardly known for good governance, was quoted as saying this past weekend, “Those people of East Africa shock me with their wizardry in stealing.” He added, “You can even think that there is a subject in their universities called Bachelor of Stealing.”

Mr. Mugabe told his countrymen to be on “high alert” in case they visited Kenya. “They might infect you with that disease.”

New York Times is one of the biggest newspapers in the world by circulation, and a little confirmation of facts is expected. That explains why a few Kenyans were not amused.

Well, makosa imefanyika.

All we can say is that though the quotes were fake, the message remains true.