Editorial....

Boganda used to say, “I have inherited nothing but a small patch of land”, and to make matters worse, it is landlocked. Normally, the country should be looking after its access routes as if they were the apple of its eye, just like Switzerland, another landlocked country that manages just fine. But in the Central African Republic, the roads are in a state of neglect; travelling on them is a real ordeal, yet nothing is looked after, as exemplified by the stadium, which, with a great deal of imagination, has been dubbed the ‘20,000-seat stadium’, and which isn’t even authorised for international matches; moreover, there has never been a national championship in any sport, unlike elsewhere; Everything happens in Bangui; and still on the subject of imagination, they didn’t have to look far to find names for the neighbourhoods: SICA, CATIN – these were the former names of property companies; SÉIDOU, the name of a former neighbourhood chief; BENZ-VÏ, that of a Jewish benefactor of the neighbourhood, BOY RABE, which literally means: ‘neighbourhood of the Arabs’ servants’, BOEING, behind the airport – incidentally a legacy of the Bokassa era – the origin of its name is easy to guess, and so on, and Bangui is a relic of the Bokassa era; when it isn’t being destroyed, one has to wonder what use the fat cat at the head of the country is, having failed to deliver on his false promises since 2016? He who appropriates foreign donations as his own – what has he actually done since he rigged the elections? Nothing, apart from spouting nonsense to the illiterate. We are a long way from M. J. Caron’s ‘Bangui la coquette’ of the 1960s; one might even wonder if that era ever existed.

Analysis by IAline M’PANGBA-YAMARA | LNC, Director of LAMINE MÉDIA Editor-in-chief of LNC

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