Ngongo Chronicle: Copper: A Memoir

By Ron Singer

Part Two: Copper: A Memoir

by Festus S.O. Nkwema (1937-2022)
edited by Ron Singer

Editor’s Introduction

Shortly after his father’s death, on February 14th 2022, Festus Nkwema’s second-born son, Paul-Auguste, approached me for assistance in annotating this memoir, and in seeing it through publication. Implicit in the request was that I would correct, and provide context for, the memoir that his father had written, in his final, 84th year of life.

To those ends, I reached out (usually by email) to various figures from important junctures in F.S.O. Nkwema’s life. With P.-A.s’ permission, I am including excerpts from their replies. The eldest son of the subject/author, Julius Robert, took issue with certain of his father’s statements; these objections will be quoted. So as not to interrupt the flow of the narrative, all contributions by others, as well as my own notes, will appear at the ends of chapters.

In effect, Paul-Auguste Nkwema gave me carte-blanche, trusting that the published document would provide a balanced account of his father’s life, especially his thirty-seven years in power. The text will conclude with a brief Epilogue by P.-A.@@@@ —RS, Sept. 16, 2022

Note 1: “Nkwema: vs. “Nguema”: Francisco Maci’as Nguema (1924-79) was the insane tyrant who ruled Equatorial Guinea from 1968-79. This form of the surname is common in west-central African nations, including Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. In east-central African countries, especially the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Tanzania, “Nkwema” is the usual form.

Introduction

Having long since exceeded my allotted span of three-score years, I choose now to put on record this account of my life and times. Having risen to the pinnacle of political power in a small, obscure African nation, and having remained there in the face of many vicissitudes, I feel the need to clarify matters, so to speak. My thirty-seven years of rule have witnessed seismic changes of all kinds, both locally and beyond, and these have occasioned many controversies. In other words, I am hoping this memoir will be a way to set the record straight.

May Gborogboro and Nene, the forebears of my people, the Lugbara, extend my time on earth until I am able to complete this final task! Amen!

—F.S.O.N., President and Father-Protector of the Independent and Sovereign Republic of Ngongo.

Chapter One

Unlike many political figures who have reached a certain age, I am not embarking on the arduous task of writing these, my memoirs, because j’ai du temps devant moi [I have time on my hands]. Quite the contrary! Having served my beloved Ngongo in various capacities for more than a half-century, I find myself, at the ripe young age of 84, busier than ever, even as my time on earth grows short.

Nor am I embarking on these labors, as do many in the public arena, reglar un compte [to settle a score]. After all these years, it would be strange if I had none, or even few, to settle, but I consider myself to be a just man, rather than a vengeful one.

To put the matter simply, my motivation for embarking on this creative odyssey is a form of fear: I am submitting to the imperative of my second-born son, Paul-Auguste Nkwema to, as he put it, “remettre les pendules a l’heure” [set the record straight]. I would characterize Paul-Auguste, aged forty, as a formidable and faithful scion. My other son, the first-born, alas, whom I shall not so much as name yet, is a scoundrel and a wastrel, a disgrace to both his father and to the memory of his dear mother, Sarah Grace Abete Bamakoudo-Nkwema. May my darling Sally rest in peace! As for daughters, unfortunately, we produced none who survived past the age of three.

So much for preliminaries; time to get down to business! I, Festus Samuel Onzi Nkwema, was born on Saturday, May 6, 1937. Readers who are devotees of Clio, the muse of history, may be aware that this was the date on which the airship Hindenburg exploded above Manchester Township, in the state of New Jersey, U.S.A. Seven decades later, the coincidence of dates led to my being sarcastically nicknamed “The Blimp,” by that bastard-traitor, “Major” Oscar Odhon’g, although I thank God that his plot to blow me up was an abject failure. (More on that later.)

I was born in my father’s village, Mbandaka, which is in the northeastern part of Ngongo, some 200 kilometers from Fort Chaltin, the capital city. My father was an ethnic Lugbara, and my mother, a Ngbandi. Since both ethnicities are what anthropologists call “patrilocal,” it should come as no surprise that Mbandaka was where I spent my early years.

It may, or may not, also come as a surprise that my family were practicing Catholics. Not that we neglected the ancestors. (Few Africans do, and even fewer live to tell about it.) Of course, as a naked tot scratching around in the dust, and tormenting our family’s flock of ope’ [guinea fowl], religious beliefs were not a major part of my consciousness. Did I even know that, when I was a few months old, I had been sprinkled with consecrated water, or that everyone ate goat meat with chikiri [cow peas] at the ceremony, during which I was also named?

Of course, as soon as I reached school age, all of that changed. Once called “the naked people,” by now the animist Lugbara cover their private parts, and many even consider Jesus the primus inter pares [first among equals]. By the age of six, I was no longer “a naked tot,” instead proudly wearing the blue shorts and white shirt of my school, l’ecole primaire de la verge benie [Blessed Virgin Primary School].

Since Paul-Auguste has instructed me that the main goal to keep in mind is to illuminate my life’s work, I must warn the reader that this memoir will not proceed according to strict chronology. Instead, you must accept the necessity of many digressions, of which you are about to read the first.

All African rulers face the problem of reconciling the demands of progress with those of tradition. Within this broad problem lurk two more specific ones. On which side of the divide does Christianity fall? And can Christian belief be reconciled with modern socioeconomic theories, notably capitalism and Marxism-Leninism? Rather than permit this first digression to overwhelm my memoir, for now, at least, I will confine my answer to a single anecdote.

Among the fellow rulers with whom I am most often compared is Robert Mugabe (1924-2019), of Zimbabwe. Like him, my foundations were strongly Christian. Like him, I found myself in the vanguard of those seeking to liberate an African nation from colonial oppressors. Like him, as well, my long reign has been dogged by criticism from all sides: “Nkweme [Mugabe] is the new oppressor.” “Purporting to be a Marxist-Leninist, Nkweme [Mugabe] is a running dog of capitalism.” Etc., etc.

With that by way of preamble, here is the promised anecdote. Among Mugabe’s many rivals during his country’s freedom struggles was a man named Edgar Tekere. This intense, deeply cynical man bore the nickname, “Two Boy,” because, as a schoolboy, he had played football (aka, soccer) with such intensity that he was said to be the equivalent of two players.

Tekere, who came from a militant, anti-white family, told many stories to discredit Mugabe. In Shona, their common language, “Mhondoro” means “lion,” and refers to dead chiefs who return as roaring lions to warn their embattled descendants of the approach of an enemy. Once, when Mugabe and other ZANU leaders were fleeing Rhodesian security forces, Mugabe did not hear the ancestral lion roar, which his colleagues did hear, enabling them to preserve the group.

Tekere claimed this incident proved that Mugabe was an illegitimate leader, but it was the accuser who was subsequently marginalized. Acute mistrust has remained a constant in the political history of independent Zimbabwe, now in its forty-first year. Of course, acute mistrust has also characterized independent Ngongo’s longer history (sixty-one years).

Speaking of Mugabe, I wish to make one further comparison. Over the years, among the many accusations of my opponents have been that I have rigged elections. When Mugabe was victorious in his country’s first elections, in 1980, Tanzania’s Foreign Minister reportedly told Lord Carrington, the engineer of Zimbabwe’s Independence process, “Julius [Nyerere] wants you to know he is pleased that Mugabe won, but why did you let him win by so much?”

Heh heh! But assez de cette longue digression! [enough of this lengthy digression!] I return to my formative schoolboy period.

I spent my primary years (1943-47) at la verge benie, in the heart of Mbandaka. From that period, during which I learned my lessons assiduously, even as I continued to assist with the work at our family compound and farm, two episodes stand out. First, during my class’s graduation ceremony, the headmaster, Pere Eugene la Chasse, singled me out by declaring, “Dieu a marqué le jeune Nkwema comme futur chef de notre nation.” [God has marked young Nkwema as a future leader of our nation].

Secondly, as I neared graduation, at my mother’s insistence, I underwent two coming-of-age ceremonies. In addition to the expected Lugbara rites, in Mbandaka, I was subjected to her people, the Ngbandi’s, ganza [“that which gives strength”], at the hands of a bento [diviner]. This ceremony involved an even more elaborate rigamarole than the Lugbara one.

Ganza involved masks and statues that were kept in huts at the entrance to my mother’s village, Mongondi Ngwiri. To avoid another long digression so soon after the first one, I will say only that one of my fellow initiates that day, Joseph Ngbaga, would come to play a very important role in my subsequent life. Remember the name!

(In early 2022, I reached Father la Chasse’s nephew, Pere Jean la Chasse, through his (Father John’s) former employer, the Diocese of Toulouse, France, in which town his uncle, Pere Eugene, had lived in retirement for several decades until his death in 1989. By the time of our communication, Pere Jean was also retired. —RS)

“Shortly before his passing, during one of our last conversations, my uncle, of Blessed Memory, confided to me, that, in 1946 or ’47, he had indeed prophesied that his then-student, Festus S.O. Nkwema, would rise to the leadership of his nation, Ngongo. My uncle, Pere Eugene, confessed that, over the years, his feelings concerning this prophecy were mixed.

“On the one hand, he expressed contrition for the worldliness that had long made him proud of his prescience. On the other, he regretted what he referred to as ‘the blood of so many,’ which was spilled by Dictator Nkwema, and for which Pere Eugene felt indirectly culpable. In response to my uncle’s confession, I can only offer the platitude that God works in mysterious ways.” @@@@ —JlC, Toulouse, France, 23 February, 2022

Note 2: I have chosen to include both of FN’s introductory explanations for why he wrote the memoir. Although they overlap, they offer the reader a first glimpse into the mind of a shrewd old man. The arch wordplay (“ripe young age”) is a typical example of an old man’s wit.

Note 3: Despite his assertions to the contrary, FN obviously hoped to settle many scores in this memoir. Two of his favorite targets were Major Oscar Odhon’g, one of the leaders of the 2007 assignation plot, and FN’s own alienated first-born son, Julius Robert. Major Oscar Odhon’g’s plot is the main icident in my book, Pierre Tshombe, or The Making of an Insurrectionist. By the way, Pierre’s assertion at the beginning of that book, that Odhon’g had been an officer in La Force NKN, is incorrect. He was a Major in the regular army.

Note 4: This digression about the Hindenburg suggests two further traits of the eighty-four-year-old Nkwema: the tendency of an old man’s mind to wander, and an “inflated” view of his own life. Understatement (“time grows short”) is another oblique form of boasting.33 Note 5: FN’s adversarial relationship with one of Ngongo’s principal ethnic groups, the Acholi, will figure prominently in his memoir. This, in spite of the fact that his own distant relatives included several Acholi, who, like Pierre Tshombe, hailed from the Mindouli district. As will also become clear, even FN’s relationships with the Lugbara and Ngbandi were complicated.

Note 6: The need to reconcile Christian, with traditional, beliefs, has been a major issue in modern Africa for both rulers and political dissidents. (For the latter, see my book, Pierre Tshombe… passim).

Nkwema’s identification with Robert Mugabe may have begun with the fact that both were earmarked for leadership at a young age by Jesuit educators.

The anecdote about Mugabe and the lion may, or may not, be apocryphal. Edgar Tekere’s biased account can be found in Heidi Holland’s Dinner with Mugabe. The same book recounts the relationship of Mugabe with Lord Carrington. (See booklist, infra.)

Nyerere’s supposed reaction to the news of Zimbabwe’s first, rigged election (1980) is also retailed by Holland. Since, during that same year, Nyerere gained more than 95% of the votes cast in Tanzania's own elections, his alleged complaint about Mugabe’s margin of victory could very well have been tongue-in-cheek. According to Holland, Lord Carrington favored Mugabe’s rival, Joshua Nkomo. Carrington found Nkomo more human than Mugabe, whom he regarded as a “reptilian intellectual.” Since Nkwema was (again, like Mugabe) a lifelong reader, it is even possible that he read Holland’s book, which was published in South Africa, in 2008.

Note 7: The Ngbandi’s most famous son was Mobutu Sese Seku, with whom Nkwema was also regularly compared by critics and opponents. Although these two rulers shared important traits and policies, especially economic, Nkwema was understandably loth to identify himself with his notorious neighbor. Another local villain, Idi Amin, was half-Lugbara.

To be continued...