Denis Sassou Nguesso, his clan and government now openly accused of corruption

It seems fear has escaped most Congolese, especially those in government and holding powerful posts, posts they were offered, thanks to the magnanimity of Denis Sassou Nguesso or members of his large and extensive family, who are present in all spheres of life of the West African state.  Why are some of his allies now loquacious   ?  An attempt is given below.

Family business

It is no hidden secret that, in Congo, members of the  ruling Sassou Nguesso family are either in government or have help appoint a government minister, member of parliament or mayor of a city or town.  It is a show of their manifest grip over the government. Three of Denis Sassou Nguesso’s children, namely: Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, Claudia Sassou Nguesso and Stella Sassou Nguesso Mensah, are members of parliament under the banner of the ruling PCT or Congolese Workers Party. His niece, Arlette Soudan-Nonault is minister of Tourism and Environment. His nephews: Jean Jacques Bouya and Jean Dominique Okemba are respectively: minister of Spatial Planning and Major projects and Member of Parliament, while Jean Dominique Okemba is head of Congo’s national Security Council.  Rear Admiral Jean Dominique Okemba is de facto, the head of the intelligence service and national security.  Another nephew of Denis Sassou Nguesso, Colonel Edgard Nguesso, is the head of Presidential domains. In business, they are in oil, media, transport and construction, directly or through surrogates.  Congo is therefore in a country tightly controlled by one man and his family, where there is no free speech and wanton arrest of political opponent is prevalent. According to the local NGO, OCDH, there are officially 133 political prisoners held at the Brazzaville central prison and amongst which are two Presidential candidates: Jean Marie Michel Mokoko and Andre Okombi Salissa.  And according to Reporters without Borders or RSF Congo is ranked 114 on 180 in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index.  That people have started speaking out not only against corruption, but pointing accusing fingers at the President and his clan is not only a revolution but raises questions.

Why is it happening now?

According to Mrs. Olga Patricia Ndinga Somboko, who is a political analyst based in Cergy on the outskirts of the French capital, Paris: “Sassou Nguesso, his clan and government are showing signs of vulnerability seldom seen from a man who has been governing the country with an iron fist. They are manifesting their vulnerability by reacting to anything or news that pains them negatively.    Look at the way the pro-government privately owned daily, Les Depeches de Brazzaville has reacted to the recent novel of Alain Mabanckou. They reacted by writing three virulent anti Mabanckou editorials”. “The vulnerability also stems from the fact that, the family is not united”.  She continues: “They are divided in two main camps: those supporting Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso’s plans to succeed his father and those who are supporting Rear Admiral Jean Dominique Okemba’s covert ambitions to succeed his uncle as President of the Republic. It is the first time since he violent seized power in 1997 from Pascal Lissouba the only post independent democratically elected president that he is being challenged this frontally”.  She adds: “The primary reason is the economic crisis caused by the crashed in oil prices. Those he bought their loyalties have seen their pockets dried up or considerably reduced. The daily lives of people are not improving in spite recent appreciations of the price of oil at the world market”. She went on: “The other reason is the inability of the government to reach a bailout agreement with the IMF and which most Congolese think; the principal obstacles are absence of transparency in debts Congo contracted from China and other countries and also the endemic corruption”. She concluded: “While most Congolese live in abject poverty, the families of the President live in ostentatious opulence, characterized by the celebrations of sumptuous wedding like that of his nephew Cyr Nguesso that was celebrated yesterday. People are angry and those now speaking are those who saw him lost power in 1992 in similar conditions”.

Corruption

Mrs. Olga Patricia Ndinga’s observations on the internal feud which makes the government and the President appear weak and vulnerable could be correct. On September 27^th, Cyr Ebina, an MP of the ruling PCT and also a son in law to the President, in a telephone conversation, accused the President albeit in a veiled manner of covering corruption of members of government and his family. He added: “for any meaningful result in the fight against corruption to be visible, members of the Nguesso family and government ministers must be arrested and prosecuted. Sadly it is not the case”. He continued: “How do we think the IMF and the international community are going to take us seriously if we don’t genuinely fight corruption?” He concluded: “the current economic crisis is partly caused by the poor governance of Denis Sassou Nguesso. It is also true that, the fall in the price of commodity, principally oil has a fair share of the blame, but we are the architects of our current economic travails. If there was accountability and the rule of law, I don’t think we would have been where we current are economically. We would have been better. Why is Nigeria out of recession and we are not, while we are all exporters of oil? Do we think we will ever be able to sign any bailout agreement with the IMF in such circumstances of corruption and opaque financial transactions? I doubt”.

Mr Pierre Ngolo, Senate President and secretary general of the ruling Congolese Workers Party or PCT, in a press conference jointly organized with the Jean Pierre Thystère Tchikaya, minister of Hydrocarbons, who is accused of corruption, said publicly that, corruption was the cause of the economic difficulties that the country was undergoing. He openly accused Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso of not only being corrupt but also of nursing presidential ambitions. He concluded by calling on all MPs belonging to the ruling party and who are supporting Denis Christel via his association: “the Congo that we desire” or in French: “Le Congo que nous Voulon”, to stop because, they don’t have his support or that of the party. Paradoxically, Pierre Ngolo and Denis Christel are members of the same party, but are washing their dirty linen in public.

 In a telephone conversation on the 24^th of September, Joseph Kignoumbi Kia-Mbongou, an MP and second secretary at the Congolese national assembly,  accused President Denis Sassou Nguesso and his family of corruption. He said: “the ruling family has used the National Oil Company, SNPC as a corruption conduit”. He added: “in November 2001, a French bank, BNP loaned out FCFA 6.5 billion to SNPC based on collateral of 12.5 billion worth of crude oil barges”. He went on: “this sum disappeared in thin air”. Joseph Kignoumbi Kia-Mbongou was simply confirming a press release that he had made public in which he gave details of all the financial impropriates allegedly carried out by Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso at the SNPC. He concluded: “I want to be at peace with myself. I will make more revelations that I discovered when I was member of the finance commission at the national assembly. The Nguesso family has destroyed Congo”.

Rejection of corruption accusations

In reaction by phone from Brazzaville today Friday, Guy Marius Okana, a municipal councilor at the Brazzaville Greater city council and an aide to Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso said: “attacks from Joseph Kignoumbi Kia-Mbongou, Pascal Tsaty Mabiala or Pierre Ngolo who are accusing Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso of corruption and by extension his father, are campaigns of calumny from a group of people who are not themselves paragons of probity. Pierre Ngolo is a member of the PCT and as such, I would have expected that, any differences that, he has with Denis Christel should be ironed out internally and not publicly, this, in respect of recommendation from the 6^th ordinary congress of the PCT. Sadly he is washing the dirty linen of the PCT  in public. It is unfortunate”. He added:  “Pierre Ngolo is Senate President and secretary general of the PCT, why didn’t he resign from the post of SG of the PCT and allow his deputy, Andre Massamba to continue with the running of the party?  Why are they thinking that Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso has presidential ambition while his father is still president of the Republic? Is it a bad thing for Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso to come in support of patients and staff of the Brazzaville University Teaching Hospital that have been on strike and without pay for several months? When it was time to remove Gabriel Oba Aponou as head of the ruling party in Brazzaville because he was the head of the senate subcommittee on foreign relations or having the dual casket of Senator and regional party head, it was not normal, but when it is Pierre Ngolo, who is Senate President and SG of the ruling party, with doubtful management it is normal”. He concluded:  “Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso does what he does under the aegis of his foundation, Perspective Avenir. He is not corrupt as his enemies are claiming. Let his accusers bring proves and not rumours”. Pierre Ngolo’s accusations were a bold one from one whose meteoric rise politically, is thanks to Sassou Nguesso but was also another indication that, fear has deserted most.

Endorsement of Denis Sassou Nguesso

On the 22^nd of September, in an exclusive interview  granted via phone from the Nairobi international airport, where she was on transit to New York to attend the UN general assembly and UN sponsored international conference on environment, Arlette Soudan-Nonault, who is Congo’s minister of Environment and Tourism and who was representing President Sassou Nguesso, said: “I am happy to announce that, the German organisation, GTZ  has offered the Congo Basin Forest that Congo is leading, the sum of € 15 million or FCFA 10 billion to help improve the Congo Basin Rain Forest management,  a forest which  absorbs 15% of the global greenhouse emissions”. She added: “Soon, it will be the French Agency for International Development or ADF that will grant my ministry, the sum of € 2 million or FCFA 1.2 billion. She went on:  “those grants are an endorsement of President Denis Sassou Nguesso and his government’s determination to fight against corruption”. She concluded: “the IMF should follow the examples of both organisations and countries and sign the bailout agreement with Congo that has been postponed a record six times because of among other reasons: corruption or ideological divergences. But I know that most of my ministerial colleagues are corrupt and I am today a subject of attack from them because they are jealous of grants that, my ministry is receiving and would have wanted that, it should be diverted to other purpose which weren’t designated for or misappropriated as they have done with other assistance from donor countries and organisations. But President Sassou Nguesso is determined to weed out corruption in governance. Hence he has created a new organisation to fight against corruption with more powers and equally be independent”. 

Imminent arrest of corrupt persons

She added: “It explains why some of my colleagues are in panic mood right now. Those who stole money and kept them abroad or who are corrupt because they are close to the President will be arrested. But she didn’t give any names or when the arrest will start.  She however said: “her ministry plans to create at least 10 thousand jobs and will develop historical or memorial tourism and ecotourism with the objective of making Congo become the first tourism destination within the central African region. Toward that, information offices displaying or providing the tourism potentials of the country have been opened at the Brazzaville and Pointe Noire International airports and obtaining of visas for tourism have been facilitated”.

Why is Arlette Soudan-Nonault openly accusing some of her colleagues of corruption?

Professor Elanga Christophe Ndongo Gilles, a political analyst based in Brazzaville seems to have an answer: “the current declaration from Members of parliament belonging to ruling and even government ministers accusing their colleagues and the President of the Republic of corruption is the result of the current infighting within various clans joggling for power. Arlette is the niece of the President and he has used her as a bulldozer or dispenser of bad news in pass, so it is not fortuitous that she speaks the way she has by not showing solidarity with her colleagues.  There's also the rumour of an imminent cabinet change, hence exposing each other increases the chance of either forcing Sassou Nguesso to drop long standing ministers accused of corruption or attempt to bringing rebels or opposition element on board in a bid to forestall any kind of uprising as economic crisis digs deep and discontents rises. But when Pierre Ngolo, Senate President and secretary general of the ruling party openly accuses Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso of corruption, it shows that, the President wants to show the world, especially the IMF that, he really means business in his fight against corruption and he is ready to sacrifice his son. It could also be a political tactics from the President who has not yielded to the recommendation of the IMF to audit the SNPC or the major public works ministry both accused of monumental corruption” he concluded.

Aimé Hydevert Mouagni MP: Profile a a firsthand survivalist

Aimé Hydevert Mouagni MP: he is the chair of a political party called Club Perspectives et Réalités, in French or in English, Reality and Perspective Club, abbreviated CPR. Aimé Hydevert Mouagni would have been the perfect example of what makes true multiparty democracy the best form of human governance, given the caliber of people that it sometimes produces to lead. But sadly, he is everything, but a product of democracy. He is instead the product of a rotten and an amoral system instituted by Denis Sassou Nguesso. The crime, which is also the sins of Denis Sassou Nguesso and this according to Jean Marie Tassoua, is that, he has forsaken along the way, all those who supported him and made him to become what he is today. Denis Sassou Nguesso has forsaken his true friends and supporters for his family and new friends, whose only ambition is to enrich themselves. Jean Marie Tassoua goes on: all those who left Pascal Lissouba to follow Denis Sassou Nguesso, may not have been angels, but they nonetheless had an ideal and also a goal to achieve. Their goal was a different Congo, which they hoped under Sassou Nguesso, would be free from corruption, tribalism, political violence and all the ills of Pascal Lissouba. But the new friends and family members of Denis Sassou Nguesso have no plans or ideals, which can make people to forget Pascal Lissouba’s government. Instead things are worse under Denis Sassou Nguesso. He concluded.  As for Aime Hydevert Mouagni, he may have fought as a militia for Denis Sassou Nguesso and only believes Denis Sassou Nguesso, but that is not enough. His conduct is at variance with those of any group of people who have a balance and rational view of Congo and the world. Hence Aimé Hydervert Mouagni deserves no praise, because he is not a product or hard work or democracy, but of a system that is corrupt and is breeding a combustible mix of tribalo-Christian-neo nationalism.

It is a system that celebrates deviant sexual life, corruption, immorality of all sorts and the non respect of national and international law. It is also a system that believes in the use of brutal force. Its visible and noble proponents are Leon Juste Imbombo, Arlette Soudan Nonault and Alain Akouala. They hide themselves under dubious claims of revival of national and African traditions to distil a venomous ideology that is alien to the African values that they claim to extol. For African values is not synonymous to duplicity, violence and immorality, as practiced by the Sassou Nguesso’s regime. The grand ideologue of this counterfeit Congolese and African nationalism is Theophile Obenga, a specialist of ancient Egyptian history. Aimé Hydevert Mouagni is a product of the dubious system that would turn against it founders one day. He is an assertive and violent person. It is also clear whenever you sit to converse with Aimé Hydevert Mouagni, that, he is a controversial Member of Parliament for Moungali, a neighbourhood that straddles the south and north of Brazzaville. Aimé Hydevert Mouagni is every inch a rogue and also an erratic person. He is sickeningly incoherent in the way he speaks, especially to journalists and to some politicians.  In spite all the above description of a perfect a character or product of the tribalo-Christian-neo nationalism, honesty requires me to state here on albeit with pain that, Aimé Hydevert Mouagni is not an all round stupid man as some may claim. Some of his detractors have gone the extra mile to call him a marionette. But he is everything but a marionette. He knows what he wants and certainly has a goal or objective.   

To reach those, he can count on his ruse. He has the cunning attitude of an animal or of a man who has spent time on the street or in prison. His supporters as well as his detractors, who ignore him, are doing that, at their own risk. How can he be a fool  when he has a formidable network of informants that, he has introduce within most militia groups, political parties, civil society organisations and even in the press? This network feeds him back with information. However, he is mindful of his many handicaps among which is, intellectual. However, where Aimé Hydevert Mouagni outsmarts everyone is that, like a true street boy and a firsthand survivalist, he masters not only the Congolese society but also the ruling elite, in particular the Nguessos, which he claims to be a member of their large family. The Nguessos have an elastic family that keeps expanding as the time of their father and uncle is prolonged at the summit of the country. And sometimes, it is hard to distinguish the genuine Nguessos from the fake. He knows that, he lives in a society and in a world that judges’ people mostly on appearances, in particular, the depth of his/her pocket. 

Hence, whenever he wants to impress his audience, especially the Nguessos, pressmen and women and other intellectually and economically challenged persons, seeking his grants, he uses words and phrases that, he invents or coins, instantly. He could even create his own dictionary for all his created new words. Again, Aimé Hydervert Mouagni is not a fool, as some of his detractors’ claims. Another example is that, he entertains a formidable mystery on his ancestry and regional attachments in a country that is much divided along tribal lines. He is a northerner, when he is with northerners and a southerner, when he is with southerners.  Sometimes, he claims to have studied in an unknown French University, but his is academically adrift level, is quickly always exposes him. And to shield it he becomes verbose. I think he does that, because, he knows that, his Nguesso milieu is a place, where only money matters and education is not valued, but anyone who is well educated and speaks French like a French man from Paris, is respected.

That is the paradox that Denis Sassou Nguesso, who has destroyed Congo, by instituting immorality as a way of life, has done. We may hate or love Aimé Hydervert Mouagni, because he is the product of the current regime, but as I have written above, he is not stupid. the fact that he has been able to succeed in convincing the likes of Hughes Ngouelondele, who is the Lord Mayor of the Brazzaville Greater City Council and Denis-Christel Sassou Nguesso, who is the son of the president of the republic to support him financially in his political ambition to point of making him a member of parliament, shows that, he is an intelligent man and not a fool as claimed by some of his supporters and detractors. His 2012 legislative elections campaign against Clement Mierassa was finance by Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso to the tune of FCFA 300 million, funds gotten from state coffers. Hence, he had the upper hand against Clement Mierassa.  But It is also not entirely clear whether he won or got his way to parliament simply because he had deep pockets. However, Clement Mierassa claims that, Aimé Hydervert Mouagni   won through vote rigging. It is an accusation that Aimé Hydervert Mouagni rejects with a wave of his hand. 

He says that, he defeated Clement Mierassa hands down. He might be correct, because Clement Mierassa had no money. Clement Mierassa could hardly print two or three banners or buy advertorial spaces on Radio, TV or even in newspapers. To be honest, politics today is not only done with idealism, it is accompanied with money. Officially, Aimé Hydervert Mouagni is an independent candidate and leading an independent party, but the reality is that, he is a satellite of the ruling PCT party. For as the saying goes: he who pays the piper dictates the tune and his funding for his campaign came from the son of the President and the son in law to the president. How can he be an independent? Aimé Hydevert Mouagny is a member of the foreign affairs commission at the national assembly. But I don’t know what he speaks or says there, for a man who has little international culture of his own and who also repeats like a parrot, all what he listens on foreign media made by some specialists of international relations. While he always behaves like someone who is permanently drunk and drugged, he sometimes have some moments of sanity at which times, he expresses coherent thoughts.

These rare moments are the periods when he expresses doubts with the way the country is being governed by the President. He even once told me that, he is against the change of the constitution, especially if it was done to favour the stranglehold of the children of the president and his family on power. He also added: the president has allowed himself to be ill advised by people whose only interest is to line their pockets. This simply means that, Aimé Hydevert Mouagni might one day, turn against them, if they cease to give him what he wants. In other words, he is a ticking time bomb or monster, who might one day turn against the regime, his creator. While waiting for his true self to be revealed and this at the detriment of the system and those supporting him, credit would have been given to the lone Member of Parliament of his party, had he been that, he won his seat honestly or if he were humble and treated elderly persons with respect. Or play a primordial role in parliament in defense of the electoral constituency that he represents. Unfortunately, he is bigheaded. Once, I wanted to have him debate with Clement Mierassa, his rival during the 2012 legislative elections. Mindful that, he could not debate with Clement Mierassa, he decided to pay a lady FCFA 1 million, in order for her to break into the studio during the live programme and to claim that, Clement Mierassa had raped her. That shows where he truly comes from, the street and thus, he believes and behaves in gang-star politics or politics of blackmail.

Fortunately for me I got hold of his sinister plans before and I decided to drop the idea of any debate, between him and Clement Mierassa. The only thing that, I think he is correct in, whenever he boast  is that, he is what he is today because of  hard work and ingenuity.  In fact, he is an MP for Moungali. Aimé Hydevert Mouagni will certainly not have any positive role to play in the present political scene. He might instead become a nuisance to peace, for he could easily return to what he was: a cobra militiaman.  He was a cobra militiaman during the 1997 civil war. He is also being accused of having taken part in advance fee fraud or 419, while in France and because of that, he is reported to have spent some time in French jails. It is an allegation that I don’t know whether it is true or false and I have also never wanted to verify, even though I am aware that, it is not a good thing professionally to ignore such vital details.