Sadio Kante-Morel: profile of a journalist fighting against the 33 years misrule of Denis Sassou Nguesso

Sadio Kante-Morel: Until she became the flagship rabble-rouser on the streets and halls of France, rallying the Congolese and French-speaking black African Diaspora against the 33 years misrule of Denis Sassou Nguesso and other dictators, Sadio Kante-Morel was a seasoned reporter. She was a stringer with Thompson Reuters and the BBC Afrique in West Africa. It was an occasion that took her to several hotspots on the continent, in particular in the north of Ivory Coast, when it was under the control of the rebels, who are currently governing in Abidjan. And while in Congo, she was concomitantly stringing for Reuters and also collaborating or taking part at regular intervals in TV programmes on MNTV. The programme where she most participated was Point de Press. This programme was anchored by Emery Patrice Orbargui. Sadio Kante-Morel, who is a widow with only one child, is dedicated to her job and also a fearless militant against corruption and against dictatorship. Because of her dedication to her job, she most often neglects herself and doesn’t care about her looks. The dreadlock, eyeglass wearing and chaining smoke lady, is the only high profile female journalist of Congo presently.  Even though, she is now fully dedicated militant in France to see the back of Denis Sassou Nguesso, she remains professionally a journalist. This can be seen through her posts on her Facebook page where she interviews politicians and civil society activists of Congo from both sides of the divide.

Congo is a pathetic country for female journalists and professional women in general. It is a country where the system has destroyed any entrepreneurial spirits in women.  However this aspect will be developed on the chapter on Congolese culture.  The sad thing with the journalism profession in Congo is that, since female journalists such as Solange Samba Touyou, Arlette Soudan-Nonault and Marie Jeanne Colombo, left the profession, Congo no longer has high calibre female journalists capable of handling major economic or political programmes on TV, Radio and also in the print media. Today, most female Congolese journalists, especially those who are on TV and to a certain level radio, are not professionally ambitious.  Their presence on TV or Radio is a stepping stone to getting married or to be seen by powerful old and corrupt politicians or superficial businessmen. Hence in most newsrooms in Congo, whenever there are squabbles amongst female journalists, it is not for professional reasons. But their disputes occur because they want to accompany a minister or a member of the ruling party on mission to the interior of the country. For they are of the opinion that,  luck might smile to one of them and she will be selected as the mistress or second or even fourth wife of the minister or high ranking politician who came to solicit the service of their media house to send them as reporters to cover his activity.

It is a pitiable observation that I have made while in Congo. By contrast, in other Africans countries such as the DRC, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin and Senegal, female journalists are competing with their male colleagues professionally. In Congo, female journalists are instead competing with each to sleep with the most influential politicians, in order to have a RAV4 SUV or a trip to Paris or Dubai. However, Sadio Kante-Morel and perhaps two other journalists, whose profile you will soon read, were the exceptions to rule. Because of Sadio’s devotion to her job, she was expelled from her native country Congo to Mali. Sadio Kante-Morel is a pure Congolese born in the populous neighbourhood of Poto-poto, from Senegalo-Malian immigrant parents. She speaks fluent lingala.

Even though her parents are Muslims, she is not a practicing Muslim and has the liberal behavior of any women born in Christian and animist equatorial Africa. It is refreshing to find an independent and also bold female journalist working professionally, the way Sadio did until her expulsion and this, in a country where women are not professionally ambitious. It is not as though there are no female journalists in Congo. There are a good number of them. However none has been able to singularize herself professionally as Sadio has done within the electronic media. However, the only problem with Sadio, if it is really one, is that, she likes smoking and she also talks a lot. On the positive side, she is not rancorous and professionally, she likes investigative journalism with an insatiable desire for risk taking. She adores being the first on a story or making the breaking news. She was even the one who first broke the news of my spectacular armed robbery and the gang rape of my younger sister on the night of the 9^th breaking September 10^th 2014. The fact that through social media she informed the world about my gruesome attack, it was never appreciated by the hierarchy of the Police and in chief, Jean Francois Ndenguet. She is also digital savvy, in a country where journalists: men and women are on the same level in their ignorance of new media. Sadio Kante-Morel gets angry very fast, but as mentioned earlier, she keeps very little or no grudges. She is perhaps the only journalist in Congo male and female who have received record aggressions and attacks from the Police.

Maurice Nguesso’s greatest sin: Independence

Hence she decided to rename MNCOM Media Group not as Maurice Nguesso Communications, but as Media Numerique Communications. MNCOM was incorporated in Congo in 2009. All these were being done while Maurice Nguesso was still sick or convalescing and when he fully (Maurice Nguesso) recovered, he (Maurice Nguesso) decided to think bigger than the plans of his daughter, Lydie Hortense Kourissa.  Maurice Nguesso enjoys grandiose things and he has that God given quality to make or do great things. So he (Maurice Nguesso) decided that, besides the Radio, Television and newspaper components of his group, he decided to add a modern printing press called Impremerie Ayessa. Ayessa is the surname of the mother of Maurice Nguesso. Furthermore, Maurice Nguesso also decided to add a digital television or terrestrial television with a bouquet of 33 foreign and two national television stations. In fact, he became also a distributor of Television channels, mostly foreign. His bouquet of digital television was called Mosaiq TV. This distributing or pay per view television station, called Mosaiq TV became a local rival of a French multinational called Canal Plus that was doing the same business. There are three differences between Canal Plus with Mosaiq TV or the parent company MNCOM. 

Canal Plus was larger, richer and well organized or better managed, whereas MNCOM was an example of disorder or was at the image of Congo.  Disorganized or influenced by his children and other legions of friends, that doesn’t remove the fact that, Maurice Nguesso was the first before the government to introduce terrestrial television broadcasting in Congo.  Maurice Nguesso is a pacesetter within his family in several domains. The media group MNCOM was therefore made up of MNTV/Radio, Le Fanion daily, Mosaiq TV and Impremerie Ayessa. At the head of this group was Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa. But as mentioned above, the place was like a rudderless ship. However things began changing when, Mr Florent Koumba, an accountant from Gabon, was employed in 2011. Prior to his arrival, MNCOM had no business plan. It was in reality a venture created by someone who was sick and tired of the monotony existing within the Congolese media landscape, where the there was no freedom and the domination of the national broadcasters was nauseating.  

Nevertheless, one observation that I have made regarding most investments or companies created by Maurice Nguesso are that there are a lot of expectations at the beginning than the long term realities.  Simply because of Maurice Nguesso’s almost childish enthusiasms and his inferiority complexes toward some of his French whites advisers who know little or nothing about the reality of the country and region. Theirs is to come and milk him dry. Maurice Nguesso also seems to like people who have some sophistry in the way they speak, even though they may not master what they are talking about. Hence he is most often than not, hoodwinked by those French whites and even blacks who come more to get their money than deliver to what they were paid for. Unfortunately, those who love Maurice Nguesso and also respect him and who also know their jobs are not well treated by Maurice Nguesso. The professionals who would have turn things around for Maurice Nguesso are not paid or their contract terms are seldom respected. That is Maurice Nguesso’s greatest sin.

However, he (Maurice Nguesso) knows whenever he wants to or is free from the sometimes parasitic and negative influences of  some of his friends and family members, how to have confident in any person whose expertise is proven and interferes very little, once he has delegated.  But what is the point, or of what value it is, when the person who has been given responsibility is not paid? Or the terms of his/her contract is not respected?  As far as his media group is concern, its appears as though, when the MNCOM Media Group was incorporated, some experts from France, who were whites, told Maurice Nguesso that, with the creation of the pay per view television and its bouquet of 30 channels called Mosaiq TV, the said channel will become the cash cow of the group with an expected monthly return from subscribers to stand at FCFA 100 million. Armed with that, false financial forecast, Maurice Nguesso via his daughter, Lydie Hortense Kourissa went out on a recruitment spree. They recruited 200 staff. He used his group to partly help solve his younger brother’s inability to create jobs to Congolese. He confuses or took a private initiative for a public venture or civil service. 

One of the weakest links of Maurice Nguesso is that, he loves his brother of a president too much than his younger brother loves him.  If not, it is beyond comprehension, why his younger brother did allow that, his media group should be destroyed and also that, the media group is not considered or to be clear, given contracts as it is the case with TOP TV, that is owned by Claudia Sassou Nguesso, the niece of Maurice Nguesso and daughter of President Denis Sassou Nguesso? Why did his younger brother not intervene when I was expelled from Congo after my younger sister was gang raped by people who have since been freed without any form of trial? Recently during the earth summit in Paris code named COP 21, TOP TV was taken to Paris by the government along with other TV channels such as DRTV owned by General Norbert Dabira, but MNCOM or MNTV its subsidiary was not included. Simply because Maurice Nguesso is hated by some members within the ruling family and these ones seems to be the ones who are influencing the President of the Republic. But, I personally think, President himself must not hide behind others, he doesn’t like freedom of speech and real democracy as a person.

But Maurice is hated by some members of family because he is independent minded and he also wants MNCOM media Group to give a voice to all Congolese and also be independent. Those who hate Maurice Nguesso within the ruling family view his attitude as inimical to their aspired eternal rule over the nation-state of Congo.  But the paradox in all this is that, Maurice Nguesso is doing this because, he wants to give a good face to his younger brother and his government. For whatever he does, he wants credit to be given to his younger brother. In fact, MNCOM media group had a blotted work force. As for the Radio and Television arm of the group, before I could come, they were just playing traditional Congolese music and had no programme schedule and no editorial line. I was the one with the help of others that, I met such as Mr Sam Nick Owosso that we laid the foundation or reorganize the radio and television in order to give it a professional face. For a while, I headed concomitantly the print media wing, which publishes the daily called Le Fanion.