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Writer's pictureBukoko Ikoki

Dear Tshilombo, The Renaissance Dam is not just about a Dam.

In a recent trip to the US, the controversially established president of the DRC, Tshilombo, suggested that Ethiopia does not need to build her dam since, according to his discussions with the Egyptian president, Al Sisi, in Addis Ababa, Egypt would never allow the building of that dam. He added that Egypt was ready to go to war against Ethiopia. According to Tshilombo, in a rather frivolous forecast, his government is able to develop an installed hydroelectric capacity of 100,000 MW! Which would address the Ethiopian needs in electricity and preserve the national interests of the Arabic republic of Egypt that the controversial president of the DRC seems to adamantly share. Al Sisi is the current president of the African union. Tshilombo was appointed his vice-president during the last heads-of-State meeting in Addis Ababa, after the African organization expressed serious concerns about the electoral process in the DRC that led Tshilombo to his apparent power.




It now appears that the incredible flaws that have plagued the elections in the DRC are finding their way into the affairs of other countries in the region and beyond. According to different observers, including the ubiquitous Catholic church which deployed some 40,000 witnesses, the winner of the December 2018 elections in the DRC was Madidi Fayulu, with more than 60% of the votes. Yet with more or less 15%, Tshilombo was declared president by the Constitutional Court, in blatant disregard of the law. Indeed, the law requires that the results be proclaimed by the Electoral Commission polling station by polling station. The Constitutional Court consecrated Tshilombo, in the middle of the night, without the CENI ever providing the details of figures as required by the law. After a deal acknowledged by both parties was cut between the former president Joseph Kabila and Tshilombo who long strove to be appointed prime minister. In order to cover his back, Kabila handed over power to the opposition figure who had just denounced a pact he signed with fellow opponents for a common candidature in a bid to to beat Kabila's candidate. In return, Kabila was able to craft another electoral farce with a shocking majority in both chambers of the parliament for both a Constitution change and the effective control of the executive power. Leaving Tshilombo as a mere puppet. Disposable at will.



Tshilombo swearing in. Before he has an attack...

Prior to this electoral vaudeville, Tshilombo was caught in a pretty complicated situation with legal troubles in Belgium where the claims he made on the certificate he allegedly obtained were challenged before the Courts by the school that was mentioned by Tshilombo in his file at the Electoral Commission. The Belgian judiciary officially notified the DRC government of the fraudulent situation that tainted Tshilombo's candidacy. The son of a former primer minister, Etienne Tshisekedi, a prominent croney in the Mobutu regime before breaking ranks, struggled for around twenty years without ever succeeding to pass his first-year exam in the Belgian social-promotion school. A type of school in Belgium aimed at promoting a student to a certificate regardless of his skills given his unfavorable social background. Many concerns have been expressed among Kongomani and beyond, in Panafricanist circles, about the terrible impact of unqualified leaders on the increasingly complex affairs of the continent and the renaissance of the entire black nation. Especially at these crucial times when important paradigm changes are taking place with the awareness that mineral rich countries are now raising about the necessity to cut fair deals and leverage the economies with their valuable resources.

The INGA dam in its current phases of development.

Contrary to many countries in the continent and elsewhere in the Black nation, DRC seems to have taken the opposite path to emancipation. By organizing mediocrity in its governance, with the deadly attacks perpetrated during the last two decades, all indicators seem to point to a will by evil forces to bring the country back to the spider nest of colonial domination. Thanks to the world largest waterfall of the Inga fall with its 42000 m³/s flow on the mighty Kongo river, the Kongomani have the greatest hydroelectric potential that is supposed to be unfolded in different stages with the Inga stations. Currently two Inga stations, INGA I and INGA II, are operated for an initial installed power of respectively 350 MW and 1420 MW, and they only work at 40% of their capacity. Since their construction in 1972 and 1982, these two stations have been crippled by maintenance issues which saw over the years multiple reassessments of costs for rehabilitation with partial financing by the World Bank and the European Investment Bank to get the combined 14 turbines operational, with no effective results so far. The 12 billion $ INGA III project, plagued by a deep-seated culture of corruption, is still in a phase of a never-ending planning with a projected power of 4800 MW, a 3500 km transmission line to South-Africa, and 2020 as the year of completion... The project was supposed to be financed among others by bilateral contributors, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, and the Development Bank of South-Africa. It is the third stage out of six to the Grand INGA scheme, which, with a power of 40,000 MW, will be by far the largest hydroelectric station in the world at a cost of 80 billion $.


Meanwhile, Ethiopia on its side is building since 2011 its Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile river with a power of 6450 MW at a cost of 4 billion $, for a completion initially expected in July 2017. The project is financed by the government through bonds, and private contributions as well. Traditional financial institutions like the World Bank, or the IMF, which have not always been renowned for noticeable achievements in infrastructure investments in the continent, have not been invited. The two projects conspicuously speak of themselves. Given the chaos that the DRC has maintained around the third phase of its scheme with only 4800 MW yet at 4 times the cost of the locally financed Ethiopian dam, the idea that Tshilombo can suggest that his government is able to deliver 100,000 MW, is simply outrageous. A government which by the way is still not appointed five months after he was sworn in. A government that he will not be able to control anyway because of the overwhelming majority of Kabila's group which anecdotally placed him in the presidency while granting him a funny share in parliament. And the prime minister that Kabila recently designated to be appointed by Tshilombo is notoriously known for the catastrophic management of the national railway company he had been running so far. After the elections in the DRC, the African union expressed deep concerns about the whole process. Yet, in what resembled a consecration by a syndicate of heads of States, Tshilombo was overwhelmingly welcomed in Adis Ababa as one of them. Despite the terrible flaws that plagued both his candidacy and the entire process that brought him to power.

So far African countries could operate relatively in an isolated manner. So much so that States in the AU could afford to support mediocratic processes in fellow member States while hiding behind imperatives of sovereignty. With an increasingly complex world and the entanglement of interests, countries that are genuinely committed to the uplifting of their own people simply cannot afford to support mediocrity in any other countries in the continent. The case of Ethiopia speaks volumes. With a clearly emergence-oriented vision, Ethiopia is also a role model for the entire continent. Through which countries like to identify with its legacy of freedom since this particular country was never dominated in known history. The Renaissance dam Ethiopia is building is not just about power. It's power for the purpose of the Renaissance of not only the country but also the entire black nation. That's what Ethiopia is all about. Literally.

KONGO: Le mauvais flair a conduit le chien dans le repère du Léopard. Proverbe rwandais.

On the other hand, KONGO, who interestingly helped maintain the freedom of Ethiopia in the past by the troops she sent to fight fascism and Western occupation attempts which actually triggered the second world war in 1935 and not in 1939, is on the brink of a vicious recolonization. The triumph of mediocrity that has been imposed on that country during the past two decades of occupation is part of a clearly discernible strategy by the vested interests that have wrecked havoc in the heart of Africa since 1885 to take full control of the vast mineral rich country. After an appearance of independence granted in 1960. In an increasingly uncertain world for them with new challenges from different emerging powers of non-Western fabric. While being able to guarantee the economical freedom of the entire continent with her raw materials, after having been the financial base on which was founded the European union since Belgium was the only European country which got out of war debt-free, clearly KONGO can also transform the entire continent with her energy. The INGA power that KONGO can generate is unquestionably a game-changer for the whole continent. Combined with the power from other major players such as Tanzania and Ethiopia, both enlightenment and empowerment of the Black nation can be achieved in a synergy. Both tangibly and symbolically.

It is certainly a regrettable situation that, while promoting free trade, African countries which should embrace emergence and modernity would allow fellow members of the AU to take the path of a vile mediocrity and get caught in the troubled waters of instabilities. As the controversially appointed president of the DRC is making incredibly funny projections, we learn that some African countries, under the influence of obscure Western organizations, are now busy trying to divert the waters of the KONGO River to the point of dangerously compromising its flow and power. In an unquestionably sinister attempt to undermine the emergence of the entire continent and the Renaissance of the Black nation. Africa must no longer tolerate this culture of disorder, complacency, and mediocrity if it is to free itself from the chains of poverty and the humiliation that goes with it. Bukoko Ikoki, Citoyen ordinaire.


 
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As of The Sun of Righteousness, we do not accuse. Neither do we judge, nor condemn. We do not stone. We do not curse. We bless our enemies and persecutors. While we let the dead bury their own dead, as we pick up our Cross, we revive our loved ones from lethal errors.



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