DRC: The threats of John Numbi and the silence of President Tshisekedi

“A president should not say that”smiled a member of an international agency stationed in Kinshasa paraphrasing the book by two French journalists on François Hollande, the day after the exit of Félix Tshisekedi last month in New York.

On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, the Congolese president explained that certain officials of the former power in the Democratic Republic of Congo would have been tempted to dispute his victory during the 2018 presidential election.

DR Congo: The president rekindles the debate on his “victory” in the 2018 presidential election

Sure of his effect, President Tshisekedi even threw out two names of Kabilie pundits, Néhémie Mwilanya, Joseph Kabila’s chief of staff, and Raymond Tshibanda, former Minister of Foreign Affairs. The two men would have finally recognized the victory of the opponent.

Three months before a presidential election scheduled for December 20, the head of state thus rekindled, on his own initiative, the questions never quite buried around the results of this 2018 election from which he emerged before the another opponent Martin Fayulu… without the slightest minutes from a single polling station having been published.

A few days after this release, Corneille Nangaa, president of the Independent National Electoral Commission in 2018, who became a political opponent, exiled in West Africa, wrote a letter denying the New York version of President Tshisekedi. He claimed that this victory was the result of a political agreement signed between Tshisekedi and his predecessor under the gaze of witnesses from both camps and with the consent of three heads of state on the continent. Corneille Nangaa presented himself as one of the co-editors of this text called “Agreement for the stability of the Democratic Republic of Congo”.

The exiles have the floor

A few days later, last weekend, as a second element of a counter-offensive which was just waiting to get underway, it was the turn of General John Numbi, former inspector general of the Congolese Armed Forces, to appear in a ten-minute video. In these images which have been widely circulated in the DRC and in chancelleries, the man, a deserter and said to be in exile in Zimbabwe, appears in military uniform. He in turn explains that Félix Tshisekedi owes his accession to power to a political agreement, which the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian had mentioned as “a kind of African compromise”, in February 2019.

Is Congo facing a death squad?

According to his remarks, in addition to the heads of state who endorsed this text, soldiers were also present, John Numbi was among them, he also cited the names of two other high-ranking officers, who died since this agreement: generals Delphin Kahimbi and Tim Mukuntu. Each political group also brought three witnesses: two of Joseph Kabila’s men (Tshibanda and Néhémie) were cited in New York by Félix Tshisekedi. In the camp of the Cape for Change party led by the future head of state, we found in particular a politician recently promoted to minister and a former adviser to the presidency invited to leave his post a few months ago.

John Numbi’s exit is not limited to mentioning this agreement, he suggests to the Head of State to take a step aside and calls on the military to no longer submit to the “anti-values” of the current President of the Republic. He declares : “the army and the police as well as all the country’s defense forces are no longer bound by the duty to obey…”

After having mentioned his criticisms of the current electoral process, of the withdrawal of power on “only one ethnicity”, the general, under American and European sanctions, raises the possibility of “block the road to Félix Tshisekedi” before launching: “only the maker of the monster is capable of destroying it. As much as we gave him power, we are capable of taking it back willingly or by force.”

“False noises”

Faced with this double exit, the President of the Republic remains silent, he who loves verbal jousting so much. The Congolese justice system, which has placed journalist Stanis Bujakera under arrest warrant since September 8 for “propagation of false rumors” and “dissemination of false information” following articles that he did not sign in the magazine Jeune Afrique, took no action either against Corneille Nangaa or against General Numbi…