The Republic Congo: At the image of the retrograde culture of the northerners

According to the diplomat, Congolese in general, not only girls or women are not to be blamed for being lazy and perverse in their ways of life.  He continued: “They are at the image of the Mbouchis governing the country, who have evaluated their retrograde traditions and culture into a way of life and which has sadly been adopted by the government and Congolese people”.  While the Congolese diplomat that I met in Washington DC seems to have an implacable hatred for Marien Ngouabi and most northerners, which made me to take some of the points and observations he made with some circumspections, there are nonetheless some aspects or some points that, he raised during our conversation that, seem in my opinion that, he was not exaggerating. This had to do with the aspects of non respect for women which seems preponderant among people from the greater north and in chief, the Mbouchis. Although Congo is a majority Christian country, the paradox is that, the Mbouchis in power have made polygamy official. Perhaps they have done so for reasons earlier mentioned. But intelligent as they sometimes are, especially when it comes to do despicable things, the governing Mbouchi push for polygamy in Congo was wrapped and marketed as promotion and respect for African traditions. They sold it that way because of the strong opposition from the largely Christian greater south and evangelical churches.  

It may also explain why, they never made mentioned in their project that, it was the transposition of a retrograde culture practiced mostly in Oyo and Edou.Whatever reasons may have motivated the current system to encourage polygamy, it must once again be pointed out that, in the greater south, because of the influence of the Protestant brand of Christianity and extreme westernization, polygamy has been almost wiped-out or is marginal. By contrast, polygamy is still wide spread in the greater north, because of under education, the dominant influence of animism and Catholicism. Some Mbouchi cadre who are manning the mantle of power in Brazzaville could employ all subterfuges to justify the misogyny on women in Africa and in Congo in particular, but the truth in my humble opinion is that, most Congolese men, especially northerners of the minority ruling Mbouchi tribe of President Sassou Nguesso seems to have very little consideration for women. 

Profile of Maurice Nguesso aka “Le Grand frère national” (part 1)

As he likes to say himself, he doesn’t know exactly when he was born. But he quickly adds that: what is certain is that, I am the elder brother to Denis Sassou Nguesso. He goes on: if he is the President of the Republic, I am his elder brother and in our village of Edou and I am the chief, although our local tradition made  him (Denis Sassou Nguesso) the Mwene or head, after he was initiated into our mythical world of the Mbouchis at a very young age. Maurice Nguesso concludes: I also don’t know how old my younger brother was, when he was initiated. The owner of MNCOM and several other companies in Congo is a patriot. He is also creative and imaginative. Maurice Nguesso is the most popular figure the ruling family after late Edith Lucie Bongo Ondimba and he is fondly called “Ya Maumo” or “Le Grand frère national”. But like most northerners of his epoch, he doesn’t know his exact age. He relies like most northerners of his generation on age the Roman Catholic birth certificates established for them by the Roman Catholic missionaries. It is therefore believed that, he was born between 1938 and 1940. Maurice Nguesso, besides calling himself or identifying himself most often as the elder brother to the President of the Republic, likes to categorize himself as a bourgeois.

To support the fact that, he is an elite and thus refined and different from most people of his Mbouchi tribe of Edou village, he has named his large white colored building in Edou as “Villa Bourbon”.  According to the online dictionary Wikipedia, the Bourbon is a European royal house of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Spain and Luxembourg currently have Bourbon monarchs. Maurice Nguesso has not only named his villa after the Bourbon, he also loves and admires white people especially those from France. He also says he is not a communist like his younger brother but a capitalist. Before his younger brother came to power in 1979 and also changed in real life not only mythical, the balance of power within the clan and family, his senior daughter, Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa once told me that, her father(Maurice Nguesso) was the first in their family to make money. In other words, Maurice Nguesso did not wait for his younger brother to become president before starting to test the thirst that comes with riches or wealth. This contradicts the claims widely circulated that, he is what he is today because of his younger. While Maurice Nguesso is a self made man who has to a certain degree benefited from his younger brother, it is not the same with other members of the ruling family whose status in the society did change because of President Denis Sassou Nguesso. 

MNCOM Media Group: the ambition of a Congolese idealist

Officially, it is the name of a privately owned Media group abbreviated MNCOM and it was founded in 2009. She is on paper and also in the ambition and hope of it owner, Maurice Nguesso, Congo’s largest privately owned media group. It is the example of how creative and imaginative, the elder brother of President Denis Sassou Nguesso is. But on the sad or wrong side of the coin, it is the grave yard of all the professional and managerial good will. MNCOM also shows how open and conciliatory Maurice Nguesso is. Maurice Nguesso doesn’t only love his younger brother, President Denis Sassou Nguesso. He also loves Congo, Africa and above all, he loves real democracy, where there is real freedom of speech, real free and faire elections and real the defense and protection of human rights. Maurice Nguesso is the exact opposite of his younger brother of a president and all the opportunists and brutes around him.  And because Maurice Nguesso understands many things, especially Congolese and love democracy and a meritorious country, hence he has been sidelined by the extremist fringes that have taken his younger brother of a president hostage.

If for one single instant President Denis Sassou Nguesso could give an ear to the advice of his elder brother, there are some monumental errors that, he is committing today, that he won’t have. Sadly, President Denis Sassou Nguesso is surrounded by a group of people whose only ambition is to stay in power not for the good of the people but for their own and their friends and family.  As far as MNCOM is concern, It only rival is also the officially private media group called or known as Agence d’information de l’afrique Centrale abbreviated as ADIAC Group , the publishers of the country’s only daily called Les Depeches de Brazzaville, headed by a French journalist by name Jean Claude Pigasse. As in everything Congolese, there is another version about MNCOM. MNCOM was built on the ashes of an old project, which was initiated by one of the many Maurice Nguesso boys by named late Simon Zibe assisted by George Eboue. Both are former journalists who have worked with the state owned Congolese National Radio and Television Corporation abbreviated in French as CNRTV. MNCOM was first called Radio & Television Fanion, with its first station created in the village of Edou, which is the birthplace and ancestral home to the Nguessos.

Edou is a sparsely populated village located some 4 km from the town of Oyo and Oyo is also the name of  the same district that has been transformed into hybrid modern and archaic town,  since President Denis Sassou Nguesso came to power for the second time in 1997. Oyo might soon become Congo’s political and administrative capital should president Denis Sassou Nguesso remains in power beyond 2016. Anyway, that is his pet project. For according with a person that the president confided in him, Brazzaville is too hostile to him and his family, hence he wants the capital of Congo to be relocated to his village, in the same way as the former Ivorian President Late Houphouet Boigny did.  While waiting for that, to happen, Brazzaville is still the capital of Congo. Besides the Radio and Television, the Fanion media Group was also the publisher of a weekly called Le Fanion, that eventually became the second daily in the country after Les Depeches De Brazzaville.