Open Society Foundation

As already mentioned above, my second research at NED focused on the corrosive impact of Kleptocracy at home and abroad: the case of the Republic of Congo.  The idea to add or include Kleptocracy in my research programme was ignited or inspired by Rudy Massamba. How? It all began when I accompanied Rudy Massamba at his request or suggestion to attend a conference organized by Open Society Foundation. The said conference focused on Kleptocracy in Equatorial Guinea, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. I can’t recall when exactly, that conference took place, but all I can recall is that, while attending the conference, I was impressed by an Uzbek former staff of that country’s ministry of finance, who was a panelist. The former staff of Uzbekistan ministry of finance used the platform provided by Open Society Foundation to expose corruption in his country in a brilliant way and it occurred to me that, I could do the same for Congo Brazzaville, which was equally corrupt. Even though from the period I saw how Uzbekistan corruption was exposed at the Open Society Foundation, I immediately thought of doing the same for Congo Brazzaville, whose corruption ring was lead by the Nguesso family, I didn’t move my attention from my primary research focus: the role of Social Media in the promotion of free speech and democracy in central Africa.  

As already mentioned, while working in Congo Brazzaville as a journalist, I discovered the power of Social media in circumventing draconian press laws in t and also the role that its plays in the promotion of democracy.  I therefore felt that, I could also use social media to denounce and expose corruption and equally all those benefitting from the corrupt system in Brazzaville and elsewhere.  My expulsion from Congo Brazzaville to Cameroon helped me to also discover that, social media could not only help promote free speech and democracy in the Republic of Congo, but in the entire sub region. In Congo as I have explained severally before, I saw firsthand the dangers of a dictatorship that has been transformed into a Kleptocracy, hence I was impressed by the brilliant exposé earlier mentioned which was made by the Uzbek economist and also the description of Kenneth D. Hurwitz on the corruption of the Obiang Nguema family in Equatorial Guinea, which is also another Kleptocracy within the region. Most of what I have denounced in the preceding chapters would not have happened if Congo weren’t a Kleptocracy.  An as a direct consequence, the country is not only ruined economically, it is also ruined morally.