Claim: A video shows the Congo Army chief being dragged away from his vehicle into a building by his wife, who has accused him of cheating.
Fact: The video does not, in fact, show the Congo Army chief but another man. Moreover, the clip is from a movie and shared online in a misleading context.
On 1 July 2023, Soch Fact Check received on WhatsApp a video showing a man in a military uniform — alleged to be the chief of the Congolese Army — being physically confronted and then dragged by a woman, claimed to be his wife, over accusations of cheating.
The video, which is just over 90 seconds long, is captioned as follows:
“The Army Lt General in Congo dragged by his wife who accuses him of cheating. There are no ranks in marriage my friends, ni submission and humility chabe when you are wrong 😂 😂 😂 Whocare. You really have to be careful !!! 🤔🤔”
Conversations about military bosses around the world have become quite frequent in Pakistani circles, as well as on social media platforms, after the former prime minister and chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan, started levelling serious allegations against Pakistan Army Chief General Syed Asim Munir.
The clashes between Khan and the military have been going on for a while and the PTI chief earlier made similar allegations against Munir’s predecessor, General (r) Qamar Javed Bajwa. The former PM was arrested (archive) on the orders of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on 9 May 2023 and released (archive) on 14 May on the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
The incumbent Congolese Army chief is Lieutenant General Christian Tshiwewe Songesha.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check first noticed that the video has a watermark with the text “LA CONQUETE 6” in the bottom-left corner. We searched the phrase and concluded that it is a movie, which is posted in episodes.
Taking cue from that, we found a link to a 41-minute video titled “LA CONQUÊTE || Ep 6 || Film Congolais || DDtv || Mars 2023” on YouTube channel Dinana la douce officielle, where it was uploaded on 29 March 2023.
We watched the movie and found that the clip appears between the 22:31 and 24:18 timestamps.
The actors who play the military officer and his wife also appear here (archive) and here (archive) in the same movie.
Furthermore, we looked up who the incumbent “Army Lt General in Congo” is and found it to be Christian Tshiwewe Songesha, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Lt Gen Songesha was appointed (archive) at the top army post in October 2022. We compared his pictures — available here (archive), here (archive), and here (archive) — with the man who appears in the video and found the two to be different.
The claim was also investigated by PesaCheck, which is accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), of which Soch Fact Check is also a signatory. It was also debunked by the Kenya chapter of iVerify, an automated fact-checking tool by the United Nations Development Programme under its Deepening Democracy Project (DDP).
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the video shared on Facebook and Twitter in Pakistan here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. It was posted here on TikTok.
Former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko also shared it on his verified Instagram and Twitter accounts, which eventually made news as well.
The video in itself was reported on by this publication.
Conclusion: The clip is from a movie and shared online in a misleading context. It also does not show the Congo Army chief but another man.
Background image in cover photo: aboodi vesakaran
To submit an appeal on our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com