Editorial....

Who takes an interest in the Central African Republic (incidentally, we should say the Central African Republic, because the Centre of Africa – Boganda, Dacko and Bokassa all referred to it as the Central African Republic; it was French journalists in the 1960s who feminised the name) apart from the Central Africans themselves, as Boganda himself said: “I inherited a remnant of a country”; incidentally, Boganda was not the country’s first president – to say so is incorrect – it was Dacko, whom Bokassa (his own cousin) overthrew in 1965 in a coup d’état that same year; as for the people’s opinion on the matter, he couldn’t have cared less. You might say Touadéra did the same, but with a population that is 90% illiterate, half of whom are starving to death, who cares? Besides, this little tropical, Nazi-like and touchy-feely bloke, who can’t pay his civil servants, who still lives in the Middle Ages, digging wells for water, who has a permanent budget deficit, making Bozizé (the primate) say yes, I know, not the look of it, but I can’t help myself, ‘by the grace of God’. That’s what Bozizé said about the budget. Who cares about this country with roads dating back to the colonial era? You die there as easily as you catch a cold in Europe. It’s a remote, isolated backwater where three-quarters of the young people don’t go to school – what school, for that matter? – and more than half of them dream only of leaving, to the West if possible. In the 1960s, they dreamed of France; now they believe America is a land of milk and honey, especially with a Trump who doesn’t like them. Touadéra cheated twice to become President; he’s decadent, a polygamist, and so on – but then again, who cares? A small country, with no roads, no trains or planes, and no national sporting champions; in short, I could go on and on about its woes. Are people really happy there, even if it’s relative—which doesn’t stop us from facing the facts. I know, I’m being Afro-pessimistic again, but incidentally, life expectancy in this country doesn’t exceed 50 years for men and 52 years for women, according to the WHO in 2020. When I tell you that life there is short, at least when you’re dead, you don’t bother anyone.

Chronic by Aline M'PANGBA-YAMARA l LNC Director of LAMINE MÉDIA Editor-in-chief of LNC

LNC

Date: 6 May 2026

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