FROM KINSHASA’S LINGALA TO NAIROBI’S SWAHILI

Rwanda and Uganda should lead the mobilisation of Africa investment fund for the reconstruction of DRC, writes Okello Oculi

The synchronized explosions of bombs on Kampala’s streets in Uganda in 2021 may have echoed birth yells of ‘WOMAN AFRICA’ giving birth to a baby with a Masai and Luba parents from Kenya and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); a baby with one foot flapping in the Indian Ocean in the east and the other foot in the Atlantic Ocean in the west.

That historic moment of birth was that of the East African Community (EAC) welcoming DRC as the seventh member of a new political family at dawn. The DRC has a vast total of 2,345,000 square kilometres with a population of 99 million people is a little smaller than the 2,464,992 sq.km as the combined total of Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan and Kenya.

In a little novel titled ‘’KANTA RITI’’, a child marked by a celestial rivalry between Sun and Moon, is destined to have one foot grow into Ruwenzori Mountain on the Congo-Uganda border in the west and the other foot grow into Kilimanjaro on the Kenya-Tanzania border. As a reward for his exertions his sweat and tears drip to form the vast inland pot of water, Lake Nalubale. That expanse of water migrates to support a civilization in a distant land on the lower eyelid of the Mediterranean Sea to the north.

The DRC is a land much abused by many for holding abundant minerals and agricultural resources. Its tall frame from Lubumbashi on the Zambian border in the south, to Juba in South Sudan, cries out for a railway line covering 2,848 kilometres.  Its belly expects a railway belt from Kivu in the east to Kinshasa for a distance of 1,567 kilometres. The enormous wealth which a United Nations Committee accused 83 multinational corporations of looting from the country would have built those railroads several times over. Greed by foreigners continues a brutal cruelty to DRC.

China has floated a vision of a railway line which runs from Mombasa on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coastline to oil-rich Lamu to its north (having traversed Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan beckons a link to Kinshasa in DRC. Ethiopians also dream of building their ‘’Renaissance Dam’’ to produce electricity to run those railway lines. Ethiopia and Eritrea may also be lured by the seductive economic beauty of an East African Community pregnant with a DRC elephant.

Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni have lost sleep over armed groups attacking them from elusive bases in eastern DRC.  Sharing a common political space with DRC will remove huddles of borders drawn by colonial cartographers behind which their attackers have sheltered.

Of the six member states of the East African Community, only Tanzania – largest in territory (at 945,087 sq. Km) and population size (of 59.678,000 in 2020) – has not experienced destructive convulsions due to poor governance.  Tanzania’s founding father, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, came from a tiny ethnic group and yet ruled for over 20 years; leaving power despite popular demands for him not to go.

Nyerere courageously hosted fighters for liberation from Zimbabwe and Mozambique in the east to Namibia and Angola in the west. His government’s defensive corruption-free and creatively democratic politics has much to offer for the rehabilitation of a severely tortured DRC polity.

With the first female President in the region, the Tanzania leader should push demands for accountability by barbaric criminals who shoved broken bottles and other harmful tools into sexual organs of women to drive communities in eastern Congo from lands rich in cobalt, coltran, diamonds and other resources valued by multinational corporations and rogue states..

Kenya inherited from European immigrants a rudimentary industrial sector. Its private sector leaders should link with Tanzania’s promotion of self-reliance to boost investments into blooming inventions by Congo’s women in areas free from terrorism by militias. Rwanda and Uganda should lead the mobilisation of ‘All Africa investment fund for the reconstruction of DRC’.

Mombasa and Dar- es- Salaam have evolved as ports for export and import trade for eastern DRC. A truck travelling from Southern Kivu, via Kigali, to Mombasa covers 2160 km, and 2399 km to Dar- es- Salaam. To reach Kinshasa it would add 2160 km and 1,567 km, respectively.  As a member of EAC the ports would not charge fees, thereby saving valuable funds.

President Mobutu’s policy of ‘’AUTHENTICITY’’ in pop music drove Euro-American pop music out of nightclubs and radio broadcasts. He asserted that ‘GOD KNEW AFRICAN NAMES before the Catholic Church imposed foreign names on Congolese’. The ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT’’ validates his project. It should not be buried under silence.

Paul Kagame and Museveni have boldly and creatively opened political doors for women’s talent into governance and legislative bodies. Injecting that virtue into Congolese women need those entries.

Prof Oculi writes from Abuja