Profile of Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa, pioneer CEO of MNCOM ,Congo's largest privately owned Media Group

Whatever the case, I still have respect for Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa. I also know that, she is a good God fearing Christian woman who is different from the rest of the Nguesso ruling family. The other good, loyal, humane and humble Nguessos that I have come across are her brother, Eugene Nguesso, her late cousin, Edith Lucie Bongo Ondimba, her father, Maurice Nguesso, her younger brother Rodrigue Nguesso, her younger sisters Marina and Jenifer Nguesso and her cousin Edgard Nguesso. Nevertheless, there must still be some good Nguessos that, I have not come across, for it will be grossly unfair on my part to generalize or rule that, they are all bad mannered.  This simply means that, there are some good as well as some bad Nguessos, like in any other family.  As for Eugene Nguesso, he might look disorganized, unkempt and has the features of rogue, but he is a nice, humble and gentle humane man. But Eugene Nguesso has not received any sound formal education. There is another night club going Nguesso known as Kondo. He has the attitude of a feline and wily as a hare. He is the chair of a football team called Kondo Sport FC.

One doesn’t know for sure where he stands politically, although he is proud, but he at least has some respect for others. However, the sad thing is that, it is more often than not, those who ruin the reputation of the ruling family that, are always seen or noticed because of their show and tell conducts. Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa has three other things that she admires and loves best. She likes and loves her parents, especially her father, Maurice Nguesso and her uncle, Denis Sassou Nguesso. She also loves her family and children and loves and respects her husband, Mr Jean De Dieu Kourissa MP.  She has a fourth passion. It is aeronautics. She developed that passion while in Gabon when her cousin, late Edith Lucie Bongo Ondimba was the first lady and late President Omar Bongo Ondimba introduce her into aeronautics and she had a small firm that specialized in the hiring or as intermediate for people and organizations that wanted to hire aircrafts in Gabon and within the sub region. She even wanted to open an aviation hiring company in Congo, but her project was taken over or usurped by her cousin Jean Jacques Bouya MP. Anyway that was what she told me and she can’t lie.

Jean Jacques Bouya MP is minister at the presidency of the Republic in charge of major public works. But it was in Paris, France that, Mrs. Kourissa decided to rename the Fanion Media Group into MNCOM. MNCOM stood for Maurice Nguesso Communications. She told me that, she was inspired by the American businessman by name Donald Trump, whose name is attached to almost all what he (Donald Trump) does. However, while there is no problem with Donald Trump using his name as label in the USA, it is not the same with Maurice Nguesso. Mrs. Lydie Kourissa told me that, she wanted her father’s name to be attached to the transformation and name change of the Fanion media, which she was preparing to rename as MNCOM. But she quickly discovered that, Nguesso, their family name was not popular in Congo. It is in fact a liability. The name was however popular between 1997 and 2000. The  Nguesso name fell out of grace when her uncle President Denis Sassou Nguesso put aside all what he deplored in his pre-1997 campaign book: Denis Sassou Nguesso, le manguier, le Fleuve et la souris, JC Lattes, 1997. 

Donald Trump is an inspiration: the case of Maurice Nguesso

Maurice Nguesso is an extraordinary man, but he is most often than not, criticized by members of his own family.  Why? Simply because of the way Maurice Nguesso does things. He is too opened minded to the liking of some members of the ruling clan and more, Maurice Nguesso is not tribal, racist, regional oriented or nationalistic as most of his family members are. It is true that, Maurice Nguesso seems to be more socially oriented and the management of some of his investments is sometimes questionable. However, criticisms coming from a section of his family, who are themselves not paragons in management or social life is not an event and also doesn’t remove the fact that, Maurice Nguesso is a highly creative, imaginative and inventive man. How did the media group originally called Fanion, the parent company of Radio Television Fanion and the daily Le Fanion, became known as MNCOM? According to Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa, the eldest daughter of Maurice Nguesso: it was when her father Maurice Nguesso, fell seriously sick and was taken to Paris, France for proper medical attention, which Congo’s ruined medical system could not offer.

She added: My father thought that, he was going to die. And he decided to write his will and put me, Mrs. Kourissa at the head of all his investments. The exact year is not known or I have forgotten as at the time that, I decided to put this in writing. And I could not write or call her to ask because, our relationship has fallen apart, since she did not say anything when the Police of Congo with the tacit support of her uncle of a president attacked my home and my younger sister gang raped. And I was expelled on the 26^th of September 2014, because, I dared criticized what happened to me. May I write here on that, Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa and I had agreed verbally that, I should not write anything that I will see in the way the country was being governed by her uncle, President Denis Sassou Nguesso. However, I felt that, that verbal pact was blown up when her uncle who had promised to protect me in the discharge of my duty as a journalist, allowed or could not muster the courage to denounce the brutality meted upon me and my younger sister on the 10^th of September 2014 by the Congolese National Police Force, headed by General Jean Francois Ndenguet, who is an alleged war criminal.

Her uncle has also not said anything since my expulsion on fallacious grounds on the 26^th of September 2014. This simply shows that, President Denis Sassou Nguesso supported what happened. If not, why has he not intervened? Is he trying to claim as many have told me that, he is not aware?  Be that as it may, I am very proud of what I have done in Congo, for I tried as best as I could to give opportunity to all shades of political and social opinion in Congo to express themselves on Radio and Television, something that had not existed since the re-election of Denis Sassou Nguesso in 2009. But I am also aware that, if the honest and God fearing Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa has not said anything, it is simply because she knows the truth. She knows very well that, General Jean Francois Ndenguet could not have acted without the approval of her uncle of a president of the Republic. She is had to make tough choices between her uncle and an ordinary journalist. She chose her uncle and family.

Whatever the case, I still have respect for Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa. I also know that, she is a good God fearing  Christian woman who is different from the rest of the Nguesso ruling family with the only exceptions being the her late cousin, Edith Lucie Bongo Ondimba, Maurice Nguesso, her father and Edgard Nguesso, her cousin. Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa has three things that she admires and loves best. She likes and loves her parents, especially her father, Maurice Nguesso and her uncle, Denis Sassou Nguesso. She also loves her family and children and loves her husband, Mr Jean De Dieu Kourissa MP. But it was in Paris, France that, Mrs. Kourissa decided to rename the Fanion Media Group into MNCOM. MNCOM stood for Maurice Nguesso Communications. She told me that, she was inspired by the American businessman by name Donald Trump whose name is attached to almost all what he does. However, while there is no problem with Donald Trump’s name in the USA, it is not the same with Maurice Nguesso. Mrs. Lydie Kourissa told me that, she wanted her father’s name to be attached to the transformation and name change of the Fanion media, which she was preparing to rename as MNCOM.

But she quickly discovered that, Nguesso, their family name was not popular in Congo. Hence she decided to rename MNCOM Media Group not as Maurice Nguesso Communications, but as Media Numerique Communications and it was incorporated in 2009. All these were being done while Maurice Nguesso was still sick and when he (Maurice Nguesso) recovered, he (Maurice Nguesso) decided to think bigger than plans of his daughter, Lydie Hortense Kourissa.  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 name of the mother of Maurice Nguesso. Furthermore, Maurice Nguesso decided also 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 the French multinational doing the same business, called Canal Plus. Maurice Nguesso was the first before the government to introduce terrestrial television broadcasting in Congo.

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 until Mr Florent Koumba, the accountant from Gabon, was employed in 2011, MNCOM had no business plan. One thing with most investments or companies created by Maurice Nguesso is that, there are a lot of expectations than reality. Because of Maurice Nguesso’s almost childish enthusiasms and his inferiority complexes of French whites and also people who have some sophistry in the way they speak, he is most often than not hoodwinked by those French whites and even blacks who come to get their money than deliver to what they were paid for. That is Maurice Nguesso’s sin. However, he knows how to have confident in any person whose expertise is proven and interferes very little, once he has delegated.  

Paris-Brazzaville : Did Sassou Nguesso take part in the assasination of Marien Ngouabi and others?

Until those deaths are fully investigated and the culprits known, named, punished and publicly shamed, the future of Congo will always be on the brink.  As concerns the death of Marien Ngouabi, there are legions of speculations and suspicions regarding the death of one of Congo’s most popular leader. One such speculation was narrated to me by a military officer, still in function in Congo. He claimed that, it was President Denis Sassou Nguesso who assassinated Marien Ngouabi. His claims were music to my ears until one day; he related to me a story that I thought was convincing, but not solid enough to nail current President Denis Sassou Nguesso. While his story was not entirely convincing, it nonetheless has some cohesion, which warranted me to share it, in this book. This is so because Marien Ngouabi’s death along with the deaths of Bishop Emile Biayenda and Alphonse Massamba-Debat remains one of Congo’s greatest unsolved political deaths, since independence. Those deaths are clouded in a lot of mysteries, speculations and suspicions.  But while Denis Sassou Nguesso is being accused, two other people have completely absolved Denis Sassou Nguesso regarding the assassination of Marien Ngouabi.

The two people who told me point blank that, Denis Sassou Nguesso had nothing to do with the assassination of Marien Ngouabi are Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa and a certain Mr. Mavougou. Mrs. Lydie Hortense Kourissa claims might be dismiss on the ground that, she is the niece of the President of the Republic of Congo. However, I believed her when she told me that, Denis Sassou Nguesso had nothing to do with the assassination of the one who contributed in making him (Denis Sassou Nguesso) to become what he is today. She added that: “On the day when Marien Ngouabi was killed, I saw how the President was crying and he was devastated”. Crying is not enough to absolve a person who is suspected for having committed a crime.  On the other hand, it must be sadly pointed out that, crying could also mean several things at the same time.  For it could be that, he was crying of joy or of sadness. Nevertheless, I believed what Mrs. Kourissa told because, she is a practicing Christians. The second person to absolve President Denis Sassou Nguesso was Mr Mavougou, he told me: “there was no way Denis Sassou Nguesso could have been able to assassinate Marien Ngouabi”.

He added: “Marien Ngouabi was killed by his own very brothers of the Kouyou tribe who were his praetorian guards and they are the ones who asked Denis Sassou Nguesso to succeed Marien Ngouabi because, they had not agreed amongst themselves or selected the rightful person to replace Marien Ngouabi”.  Here again, there is a detail that, Mavougou forgot, but that Denis Sassou Nguesso brought up in his book in a weird and wonderful way. He wrote in Denis Sassou: Le Manguier, le Fleuve et la Souris, published in 1997, he (Denis Sassou Nguesso) doesn’t mention or corroborate what Mavougou told me, but he (Denis Sassou Nguesso)writes that: “as minister of defense, he was designated as interim president from 18^th of March 1977 to April 2^nd of the same year”.  And during this period, he continued: “I was not ready to assume the post of President of the republic and more, I sensed that, there were others within the army who were better disposed than I to assume the function of president”.