FALSE: The President Of Belgium Has Not Visited the NUP President Robert Kyagulanyi’s Home In Magere

A static TikTok post shared on June 10, 2024, by Cindole Music, claiming that Alexander De Croo the current leader (“president”) of Belgium has visited Uganda without the knowledge of the Ugandan government is false.

In the video, the creator added text to the pictures stating that the gentleman with the arrow pointing at him is the “president” of Belgium and that he had visited the National Unity Platform (NUP) Party President and former presidential candidate, Robert Kyagulanyi at his home in Magere. And another arrow pointing at a white vehicle which he used to get to Kyagulanyi’s home. 

“Where does this leave Mr Mpuuga and his group!? Breaking News The President of Belgium has visited the President of National Unity Platform today’s earlier morning to his home Magere without notifying the ruling President of Uganda Mr Museven and Ofcouse this has already scared and many  Gornvernment officials him,” reads the text on the post in those exact words and grammar.

 Evidence:

The creator gridded two pictures of Kyagulanyi, other NUP party members and European Union (EU) officials and another picture of his car, creating the narrative that he had indeed been visited by the Prime Minister “president” of Belgium. He also added a caption indicating that the president came in for a private meeting and immediately left for his country.

The creator also posed a question to the viewer in the video about where the visit leaves the former leader of the opposition, Hon. Mathias Mpuuga and his people.

For the past months, there has been tension between Kyagulanyi and Hon. Mpuuga who was once a commissioner in NUP and Leader of the Opposition before their fall out which led to Hon. Joel Sssenyonyi’s appointment into the same office. 

After searching through Hon. Kyagulanyi’s different social media platforms on the said day, he did not post anything about that visit; however, on his Twitter/X handle @HEBobiwine made a post about launching a NUP school of leadership at their Kamwokya offices.

“This afternoon, we officially opened the National Unity Platform’s School of Leadership in Kamwokya. The courses to be offered at the school are intended to equip our current and future leaders with the skills they need to lead and the ability to realise their full potential,” reads the first paragraph of his X post.

 Analyzing the Video

The video was posted by Cindole Music, according to his bio is a “recording and performing artist”. On scrolling through his feed there is a lot of unrelated content for an artist which makes us question his credibility in posting such a video.

We also noticed that the images used in this video are not images taken on Monday, June 10, 2024, but of 2020 and 2021 during two different visits by officials from the EU ahead of the 2021 Ugandan presidential elections and after the elections respectively. 

After downloading the TikTok video, we took a snapshot from the video to Google reverse the image for results. We found out that the top picture where an EU official is holding a file identified as H.E. Attilio Pacific, the then head of EU delegation in Uganda and on his left is Kyagulanyi moving was used in a story by the Daily Monitor, published on Thursday, August 13, 2020, when the EU officials visited Kyagulanyi at the NUP Party offices to discuss elections the previous day (Wednesday, August 12, 2020).

The search also took us to an article by the Independent Magazine published on January 30, 2021, about Kyagulanyi being visited by the then US Ambassador to Uganda Natalie Brown at his home. It was used as a file photo in the article.

The man whom the claim suggests is the Belgium president is not the Belgium president; he is part of the delegation from the EU. Also, it is highly unlikely that a man holding the highest office in his country can have all those people surrounding him without security detail, especially in another country.

We also realised that the results from the second picture at the bottom indicated that the picture is part of a FaceBook post made on February 4, 2021, by NUP Online Patrol revealing the second visit of the EU delegation led by H.E. Attilio Pacific to Kyagulanyi’s home. Other articles found with those pictures are by Daily Monitor and the Independent Magazine about the second meeting from 2021 here and here where they discussed the human rights abuses that were happening at the time.

It is also worth noting that similar claims using the same photo have been made before in 2021, claiming that Robert Kyagulanyi had been visited by the then-United States Ambassador and that he is the gentleman next to Kyagulanyi. The claim was fact-checked by PesaCheck.

Verdict:

FALSE: Kyagulanyi did not host the Belgium “President” in his home on Monday, June 10, 2024, or ever. Belgium is not a democratic country but is a monarchy, headed by a King as a state head and the Prime Minister heading the government in its multi-party system. The pictures were both photoshopped together and used out of context, yet each is from a different meeting with the EU delegation. In 2020 the delegation met with Kayagulanyi at the NUP offices to discuss his preparedness for the 2021 presidential elections and in 2021 the delegation met with him after the elections at his home where he asked them to engage President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni about the human rights abuses respectively.  

Edited by Rukia Nabbanja

This fact-check post was produced by Debunk Media Initiative under the African Fact-Checking Incubator program, with support from PesaCheck, Code for Africa’s fact-checking initiative, and the African Fact-Checking Alliance (AFCA).