Raymond Zephirin Mboulou MP: he is Congo’s minister of interior and decentralization and he is also Member
of Parliament for Mpouya electoral constituency. Mpouya is a locality situated
some 32km from the town of Ngo in the Plateau Region. Ngo in itself is a
junction town. For Ngo which, is a market town specialized in the sales of cocoyam
is also located on the routes that leads to Djambala, the headquarters of the
Plateau region and also the passage to towns of Gamboma, Oyo, Owando and Ouesso.
Raymond Zephirin Mboulou MP is a soft
spoken man but tenacious and rigorous. He is also a person who is extremely
nationalistic and abhors France in particular. Once in his office in 2011, some
days before the holding of a national dialogue in the northwestern town of Ewo,
I overheard him in shock and awe promising to order the beating of an
opposition leader, should he decide with others to stage a rival meeting in
Brazzaville. Sometimes he is violent, especially when he is ordered by the
President to act.
Unlike others, he at
least has the courage to counter the excesses of the extremists within the
regime. In other words he is not a zealot. He is a reasoned man who is humble,
humane and generous. These are positive aspects of Raymond Zephirin Mboulou
that are not known by the opposition and other pro-democracy activists who spend
time deriding him on social media. They also call him the minister of interior
of President Denis Sassou Nguesso and the ruling Congolese Workers Party. In
other words, the opposition refers to him as partial. This former secretary
general at the presidency and a close ally to Justice Minister Aime Emmanuel Yoka
is by his position, one man who is regularly consulted by the President of the
Republic electoral and national matters. I have met and interviewed him on
several occasions. But I was stroke three times by his reactions to three
events. The first time was in 2011 as above explained and the second time was
in 2012. Immediately after the legislative elections, there were riots in Gamboma,
the most populated town in the north of Congo. The cause of the riots was the
lost of the head of the opposition, Mathias Dzon, to Hughes Ngouelondele the
Gamboma2 electoral constituency. Hughes Ngouelondele
is the lord mayor of the Brazzaville Greater City Council and son in law to the
president of the Republic.
I called him after I
had spoken with Mathias Dzon and he complained that, the army had closed down
the town and were denying him the opportunity to go back to Brazzaville. The
reply of Raymond Zephirin was shocking. He told me: Mathias Dzon must stay in
Gamboma to cleanse the city and bring back order in the town, for he is the one
who has created the mayhem. And he added: after all, I have my cassava in my
mouth, let him not disturb me. The third was in 2013, December 16th.
The army and Police were attacking the home of Colonel Marcel Nstourou, a
reneged army officer who was accused of having master minded the March 4th
2012 Explosion that took place at an ammunition depot. He was eventually arrested,
tried and acquitted with a suspended sentence. I was around the battle venue
and when I saw how intense was the battle and also the possibility that, Colonel Marcel Nstourou might be killed, I
called the minister of interior and told him that, I am around the area of
action and that, within 30 minutes or
so, I suspect that, Colonel Marcel Nstourou could be killed. He responded: let
him be killed, for he is also responsible for several deaths.
My fear was that,
should Colonel Marcel Nstourou be killed during the conflict, I think his death
would plunge the country into a tribal war, pitting the ethnic Batekes, who are
by far, the largest ethnic group in the country against the ruling minority
Mbouchi of President Denis Sassou Nguesso. Fortunately, the Colonel was not
killed. According to Matthias Dzon, President Denis Sassou Nguesso will use him
like an orange, press-out all juice out of him and then throw him away. But Mr
Mboulou ignores the warnings from Mathias Dzon and says that, he is loyal to
the President and doesn’t care what will be his fate in the future. Raymond
Zephirin Mboulou is an extremely hardworking and loyal man to President Denis
Sassou Nguesso. Nonetheless he is dominated
in his ministry by Jean Francois Ndenguet who is the head of the Congolese
Police Force. Jean Francois Ndenguet gets his strength to dominate over Mr
Mboulou from Jean Dominique Okemba, who is the influential nephew of the
president and also his special adviser. As a native of the Plateau of the Congo,
a region that is reported to have one of the highest literacy rates in the
country after the Pool region, he is a brilliant tactician. The people of the Plateau
region are also known for their unique solidarity traits.This simply means
that, in spite being part of the repressive security apparatus of Denis Sassou
Nguesso and also classified amongst the extremists of the regime, Raymond
Zephirin Mboulou still has a future in the country even after Denis Sassou
Nguesso is gone from power.
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