PARTIALLY FALSE: Hon. Akol Did Not Threaten To Storm Hon. Zaake’s Home To Hit Him If He Didn’t Apologies
But he did suggest that Hon. Zaake apologises to him.
An X post by The Kampala Journal News, an online platform claiming that Kilak North Member of Parliament, Hon. Anthony Akol threatened to storm Mityana Municipality Member of Parliament, Hon. Francis Zaake’s home in Mityana and hit him if he did not apologise to him, is Partially False.
With about 2,250 views on this single post, the account claimed that Hon. Akol gave Hon. Zaake an ultimatum for the apology on Monday, November 11th, 2024.
The claim states;
“I’m giving Zaake up to Monday to apologize to me or else I will visit his home in Mityana and add him more,”-champion Akol, Kilak MP still unremorseful about his violent behaviour in parliament”
Evidence:
“Violent behaviour…” goes back to the two members of parliament in question-fighting over a seat.
An internet search will show you that the two legislatures exchanged blows over a seat during the preliminary session held in light of the Coffee Bill Amendment 2024 on Wednesday, November 6th, 2024, as seen here and here.
Before the blows that left Hon. Zaake reeling, he was demonstrating against one of the speaker’s guards accessing the parliamentary sitting with a firearm, something that is against the house rules, and the events progressed to fighting for a seat.
To check whether Hon. Akol really threatened his fellow parliamentarian, we reverse-image-searched the photo used by KJNews, which showed Akol in an interview position with Nation Television (NTV).
The results led us to a couple of articles here, here and here and a full interview on YouTube about his remarks from the violent incident in Parliament.
In the interview, Hon. Akol says that he was surprised by Hon. Zaake’s sudden turn and asked him to leave the seat where he had been and normally sits. He added that Zaake was already agitated and further transferred his frustrations since the atmosphere was already tense in the ongoing deliberations of the Coffee Bill.
“But I am not even surprised [about the turnout of events] because the man was charged. When he was leaving the floor [after making his submission], he was [making gestures of] blows. It was a wrong transfer of aggression. Maybe he wanted to attack the Speaker? So why was he busy punching the air? Unfortunately, he targeted the wrong person,” he said.” reads the eighth paragraph of the Daily Express story
Although Hon. Zaake had initially demanded an apology and compensation with the guidance of his legal team as reported here, the Kilak North MP also asserts that Zaake should apologise to him during an NTV interview held on Friday, November 9, 2024, shared by The Front News.
In the same interview, Hon. Akol says that he is Hon. Zaake’s elder urging that according to our culture, he deserves to be respected and expects his apology about the incident.
“I’m actually expecting an apology from Hon. Zaake. He’s younger than me — he’s around my children’s age. In our African setting, elders are respected, especially when seated,” Akol added.” Read the third paragraph in the Matooke Republic article
After a thorough review of the evidence we did not find the statement that Hon. Akol promised to beat up Hon. Zaake again, should he fail to meet the demands of an apology.
Verdict
Partially false. Although both members of parliament demanded apologies from each other, Hon. Akol did not threaten to storm his fellow parliamentarian Hon. Zaake’s home, nor did he promise to beat him up again, later on, give him an ultimatum as claimed by Kampala Journal News. Disregard their claims and treat their content with a fair dose of scepticism.