U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, will land in Kinshasa on October 21. Her visit comes on the heels of a high-profile visit in the other direction, that of Daniel Lusadusu Nkiambi to Washington. Lusadusu met with several Congressman and Senators during his trip to talk the future of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). You see, Lusadusu in the DRC’s top prospect for president.
The cardiologist with training in old Zaire’s military medical schools has turned statesman in reaction to the current president, Joseph Kabila. Kabila indefinitely delayed the DRC’s 2016 election claiming it was unaffordable. The convenient excuse syncs with his government’s history of kleptocracy and corruption. Lusadusu, whose military service but non-combat role observers see as ideal to be a bridge between the country’s citizens and its often-politicized military, is now speaking about effectual policy with strategic decisionmakers around the world.
His trip saw him meet Senators Roy Blunt and Ed Markey as well as Congressmen Ed Royce and Eliot Engel. What was clear to those representatives was the need for the White House to prioritize the DRC going forward as a linchpin issue for American strategy.
They also realized that no vote would likely ever be held again under Kabila. Even if they were, they would certainly not be free elections. Even opposition figures have started to lean toward Lusadusu’s position. With Kabila walking away on his own more unlikely, more people realize the military’s role in keeping the country stable is more important than ever. The need for a transitional government, particularly one led by someone perceivably neutral with extensive military connections, is more and more apparent.
That is where someone like Lusadusu comes in
“It is because we are no longer a great power that we need a great policy. If we do not have a great policy…we will no longer be anything,” he told a Congolese interviewer recently. His “strategic vision of the revival of a greater Congo” entails permanently interweaving democracy into the country’s fabric.
Lusadusu rose to the rank of colonel and served as a presidential advisor in the 1980s. Still, he would seem to be an unusual candidate to reorganize the military, despite receiving his medical training through its schools and spending the bulk of his multi-decade service organizing the army’s medical corps from scratch.
It is what makes him so stirringly different. He has the connections and knowledge of the military organization, yet the precision and attention to detail of a surgeon to revamp the army’s culture.
Reshaping the DRC’s armed forces
“The majority of soldiers are badly or very poorly trained, badly supervised, poorly maintained, poorly equipped and not close to the civilian population,” he said over the summer. He wants to professionalize the service, simultaneously hindering future presidents’ ability to politicize the institution. “It is [currently] a militia army, a partisan and fanatic army, without a unit of command.”
Since retirement from the army, he has served as president of the veterans group Union of Congolese Military Patriots. Their goal is to see the military survive as an institution par excellence.
Lusadusu refers to this professional and apolitical force as a “national and republican army,” one sworn to the defence of the country’s democracy and constitution over any individual leader or party. That means preserving the offices of the country’s democratic republic, not its officeholders. That, in turn, would help him bridge gaps of distrust between the population and the armed forces created by years of Kabila’s mismanagement.
“The revival of the Congo as a stable and prosperous state cannot be conceived without a national and republican army.” He refers to it as an affirmation of sovereignty and conduit for national unity. Building bridges between the army and the entire 80 million-strong population also entail making the armed forces more representative. Lusadusu wants recruits from the country’s different regions to serve together and share experiences. He wants to instil a sense of mission in all those fighters not just for tribe or region, but the entire population.
He also sees this professional DRC force as critical for the country’s development as well. A new engineering corps would retool and expand parts of the country’s national infrastructure. That includes badly damaged and limited water pipelines.
Restoring a military legacy
When he served, the DRC was known as Zaire, and the Zairian Armed Forces (FAZ) were the envy of African defence ministers.
“At the time, our country probably had the best military in sub-Saharan Africa, trained around the world, distinguished in the most prestigious academies of the world,” Lusadusu has said. “All the ingredients were combined to make our country, through the operational capability of the FAZ…a continental military power.”
But the days of helping Chad and Rwanda are long gone. Influence, in fact, might be in reverse. Lusadusu blames poor political culture for “infecting” the FAZ with “nepotism, kleptocracy, patronage, tribalism, courtiers, and the various mafia practices that have diverted the army from its traditional mission [by] creating militias and abandoning the soldier to his sad fate.”
He is confident in the DRC’s current stock of former and current officers, as well as other experts, constitute exactly the organizational manpower his presidency would need to put the army back together again. That might be one of the things at the top of Haley’s agenda when she visits the DRC soon.
“This is a priority and indispensable requirement for the reconstruction of the Congo of tomorrow. A deterrent army that secures and reassures the people defends the territory and contributes to development.”