Fact-check: Did Prof. PLO Lumumba advise Prof. John Akec of the University of Juba not to graduate everyone?

Prof. Patrick  Lumumba didn’t advise the Vice Chancellor of the University of Juba not to graduate ‘everyone’. Also, the image of the two professors used in this context is an old one taken in October and posted by Prof. John Akec on his  Facebook page.

Writer: Ghai Aketch

A social media post attributing a quote to Prof. Patrick Lumumba on November 28, 2022, in an unconfirmed conversation with the University of Juba’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. John Akec, is false.

Prof. Patrick Lumumba is a Kenyan national well-known for his Pan-Africanism advocacy on the continent and a High Court of Kenya and Tanzania advocate. He is also the chairperson and founder of the PLO Lumumba Foundation.

The post claimed that Prof. Lumumba said: “Today’s graduates are the future of this country SSD🇸🇸💞, but if you graduate everyone in the country, we’ll still have the same leaders tomorrow like today’s.” This is false.

“Professor Lumumba tells Professor John Akech to stop graduating everyone in the school,” the false post was headlined by Jonglei TV, a Facebook page with over 34,000 followers.

 Screenshot of the post claiming Prof. Lumumba’s advice to Prof. John Akec

This information comes two days after the university graduated about 7,000 students on November 26, 2022.

However, Professor Lumumba was not in attendance. Our image search of Prof. Lumumba and Prof. Akec, accompanying the claim, found that the two professors posed for the photo on October 15, 2022, during the 10th Tana High-Level Forum as posted by Prof. Akec on his official Facebook page. 

                               Screenshot from Prof. John Akec’s official Facebook page

Moreover, our keyword and official page searches did not return any results about the claim. The image was, however, taken in Bahir Dar Ethiopia, during the 10th Tana High-Level Forum in October and not in Juba.

Interestingly, we discovered that PLO Lumumba’s verified Facebook, which has 945k followers, was allegedly hacked between the 18th and 20th of November, according to the verified PLO Lumumba Foundation page and thus, he is not in control of posting. 

Conclusion:

211 Check, therefore, concludes that this claim is false. Prof. Lumumba was not in Juba during the University of Juba graduation event on 26th November 2022.

This fact check was published by 211 Check with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck and the African Fact-Checking Alliance.