Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa: Denis Sassou Nguesso was chosen by God to govern Congo

However, the problem with Mr Jean De Dieu Kourissa MP and others like him within the ruling party is their collective fear to lose their privileges coupled with the fear of reprisals.  When Jean De Dieu Kourissa MP heard that, I wanted to have a television station that will give balanced news and views on national and international issues, he cringed.  He was afraid of the consequences that I will sustain from the ruling party of which he was an MP.  For Mr Jean De Dieu Kourissa MP knew that, the ruling party seldom likes the truth and they abhor any professional journalist who won’t sing their praise. It was a tough time for. And I had special debate with Mr Jean De Dieu Kourissa MP on the editorial line that I wanted to put in place, if they wanted me to work for them. I told them that, the survival of MNTV/MN Radio lies in being professional and objective. Anything short of those latter mentioned, no Congolese will ever bother to listen to them or watch their radio or television, because they know it is another attempt, for the ruling family to control the country media wise as they are already doing politically and economically.

I added: the national television and radio are already making a lot of propaganda for President Denis Sassou Nguesso and there is no place for real news or any kind of contradictory news or debates. In addition:  you or your family already has TOP TV, which belongs to Claudia Leboumba Sassou Nguesso, the daughter of the president. Another media from the elder brother of the president with the aim to promote the ruling family and the policies of the government will only generate or exacerbate a national family fatigue or rejection. However, if your media are professionally balanced or objective, I told them, people will give an ear your radio or watch your television station and more, there are greater chances that, after this regime ends, which is a likely scenario from my observations, MNCOM might survive. Mrs. Lydie Kourissa quibbled when I said that, should the regime ends, MNCOM might outlive it. She asked: so you want our regime to end? I replied: it is a democracy, I suppose. And if it is really one, then it has a life span that is terminal and not everlasting. Then I also told them, that, I had my own personal and professional reputation to preserve. If they wanted me to work for them, they should allow me a free hand in the editorial policy and a greater autonomy in the management of MNTV/MN Radio.

Mrs. Lydie Kourissa was not willing or not satisfied.  She was afraid, for she knew the way I was working at Telesud. In other words, Mrs. Kourissa knew me better than any member of the ruling family. She knew that, I said openly what I thought and abhorred injustices and dictatorship. Hence she feared my request for a free hand in the editorial policy of MNTV/MN Radio. But she had another sledge hammer above her head: her love not for political power, but more her uncle of a president and also her husband, For the period when her uncle left or lost political power to Professor Pascal Lissouba was to her a very traumatic moment. This was so because she saw how her uncle suffered, but always put up a brave democratic face for the cameras when he was out.  I discovered that what Denis Sassou Nguesso wrote in his book: Le Manguier, le Fleuve et la souris in 1997, was the greatest political lies of all times in Congolese post independence history. It was his Mien Kampf. He deceived Congolese or took them for idiots, the same way as did Adolf Hitler.

The real Denis Sassou Nguesso was in the biography written by journalist, Andre Soussan, wherein he prepares the ground to make people think he(Denis Sassou Nguesso) was born to rule, since  as he claims, he was chosen by clan elders at the expense of his older brothers to be initiated into the tribal cult in their village of Edou. My conversations with Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa, who seems to love and respect her uncle perhaps more than her biological father, Maurice Nguesso was not only edifying, but more revealing. It was not as though she was spilling the bin, but it showed one thing, the love and profound admiration of a niece to her uncle of a president, chosen by God to rule Congo. She once told me that, there is a tree at the centre of the school where her uncle studied in the Niari region of Congo, to be précised in Mbonda, where as young as he was, he carved on the trunk a tree the word: Prince. Then, she asked me: was that not a spiritual inspiration from God as the bible writings on the wall? Since Mrs. Lydie H. Kourissa is a born again Christian, she thinks honestly that, God had chosen long ago her uncle to govern Congo. 

Congo: the land where corruption is not only accepted but supported by the government (3).

The Republic of Congo is a country where there are little or no employment prospects for the teeming number of graduates and youths. Hence any opportunity for employments attracts bag loads of applicants and sadly, only people who are well connected or have what is called in Congo as “Poteau” or “pillars” which is a metaphor for internal chaperoning; are the ones who are offered jobs, even if they are not qualified or competent. For example, when I came or was hired at MNTV/MN Radio, I met that, they had a staff of 30 journalists and 20 technicians. And out of this number, only 10 journalists could read and write French or one of the other two official languages in the country: Lingala and Kituba. Paradoxically, all those employed had at least an ordinary level certificate, while the others even had Bachelor’s degrees from the lone national university called Marien Ngouabi University located in Brazzaville, the capital. And this brings us to another problem in the country: the falling standard of education and also corruption. If not, how can people who hold an ordinary or advance level certificate and worse of all, first degree, were not able to read or write in French?

How did they get those certificates?  This will be answered on the chapter on: “Congolese cultural values”. One thing amongst many that I have noticed while in Congo, especially amongst its elite is that, corruption and exam cheat has become a style or an acceptable culture. 

The elite are the ones who help their children to cheat during exams.  It is not as though there were no examination cheat or corruption in other African countries that I have visited, stayed and worked. The difference between Congo and other African countries that I have visited, stayed and work is that, examination cheat and all kinds of corruption is not only accepted but supported by the government. This is a country where the administrations of the lone state University and other state institutions have refused computerization or digitalization for fear that; it might stop or reduce frauds of all kinds. Some elite, in particular those belonging to the ruling PCT prosper in corruption. Then after observing the Congolese media landscape, I discovered that, most of the media houses or media outfits were owned by members of the ruling family: daughters, sons, brother, cousins of the President of the Republic.The only other people allowed to have media houses in Congo were people gravitating around power circles. Therefore, the so-called private media houses in Congo were a farce. 

They were also everything but private. Those so-called private media houses were not very different from the state owned National Radio and Television in the way they treated news stories that concerned any national and international events. Most media houses in Congo, especially electronic, were just making propaganda of the system and the ruling family. The only area where there were some independence or free views were in the print media that were truly privately owned.  To show how the ruling PCT and president Denis Sassou Nguesso abhorred private or independent media, the government even decided to ground the national daily called La Nouvelle Republic in favor of a privately owned daily called Les Depeches de Brazzaville.   In fact, Les Depeches de Brazzaville is owned by the president of the Republic and managed by a French former journalist by name Jean Paul Pigasse. 

My Challenges in Congo:acute problem of skilled labor (2)

I discovered while in Congo when I began working for MNCOM that, for most people who came to work for Maurice Nguesso, a majority came to take as they told me: what their family or the ruling Nguesso family has taken or stolen from Congolese. In order words, most people never really came to work honestly. It also showed how Congolese hated the ruling Nguesso family. What the ordinary Congolese forgot in their general or collective hatred of the ruling family is that, the ruling Nguesso are not a homogenous set up. In that ruling family, there some good as well as bad ones or good as well as bad Nguessos and Maurice Nguesso, for all his short comings, were a “good Nguesso”. However what most Congolese also forgot was that, Maurice Nguesso was very different from other members of the ruling clan, whose fortune are directly attached or traced to the President of the Republic or had received favors because they belonged to the ruling clan. Maurice Nguesso is different from most Nguessos. He is a very hard working man and he had made his fortune even before his younger brother, Denis Sassou Nguesso came to power for the first time in 1979 and  for the second time in 1997 after a short but brutal civil war against the country’s only post independent democratically elected president, Professor Pascal Lissouba.  

To start the broadcasting wing of the private media group called MNCOM, Maurice Nguesso invested three hundred thousand Euros of his personal fortune. But for the entire amount invested to create MNTV/MN Radio, all Maurice Nguesso got were sub standard materials. The reality is that, he was hoodwinked by the very people he put in confidence and responsibility in them, as I had already mentioned above. Then, the icing on the cake that I had as challenge when I was hired from France to come and work for MNCOM was that of manpower. Ask any employer in Congo and he/she will conclude or tell you that, the country has an acute problem of skilled labor.  Even for menial jobs, there is a dearth in the country. There are many graduates with high sounding diplomas, but they are most often than not, not qualified enough because the standard of education has been destroyed by state sanctioned corruption. 30 years of Denis Sassou Nguesso and his ruling PCT in power has destroyed Congo’s educational system, just as it has done with any other sector.

This aspect will be developed later on. Congo is one of the countries in Africa that I know besides Gabon and Equatorial Guinea were most skilled labor are sourced either out of the continent especially from France and Lebanon or from neighboring countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria , Senegal and Benin. As far as MNCOM was concern, a majority of staff recruited to work for MNTV/MN Radio were not trained journalists or technicians. Most could not even speak nor write French or even the national languages which are Lingala and Kituba. What happened was that, those recruiting brought in their family members and friends and Maurice Nguesso himself was not helpful. I was told that, Maurice Nguesso as the boss, made a lot of recommendations for people to be employed that were or could not be rejected even though they were not competent.