The Nabemba Tower, also known as Elf Tower, is a high-rise office block in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, located directly on the Congo River in the south of the city. At 106 metres and 30 floors it is the tallest building in the Republic of the Congo. [1] It is named after Mont Nabemba, the highest mountain in the country. [2] The tower was built with borrowed funds from the French oil company Elf Aquitaine. [1]
The tower was designed by Jean Marie Legrand during the government's five-year plan and was built between 1983 and 1986. Various ministries and charities' offices are housed in the tower, such as the African Self-help Development Initiative, the New Partnership for African Development, and UNESCO. [3] Nabemba Tower was inaugurated by President Denis Sassou Nguesso on 3 February 1990. [2]
Nabemba Tower was severely damaged in 1997 during the Republic of the Congo Civil War. When President Sassou Nguesso returned to power, however, the building was rebuilt at the exorbitant cost of £16,000,000. This was more than the entire initial construction cost. Elf Aquitaine funded work on the building, which was assigned to a start-up company in Congo led by two French brothers without any qualifications in company management, nor in the techniques of building construction, civil engineering, or even architectural expertise. [3]
Each year, the maintenance alone of the tower costs the equivalent of £3,000,000, a significant cost for what is still a relatively poor country. The local architect Norbert Mbila describes Nabemba Tower as "a symbolic building, built purely for prestige. It is neither necessary nor useful, as it swallows up a lot in maintenance costs." [3]
The history of the Republic of the Congo has been marked by diverse civilisations: Indigenous, French and post-independence.
Pascal Lissouba was a Congolese politician who was the first democratically elected President of the Republic of the Congo and served from 31 August 1992 until 25 October 1997. He was overthrown by his predecessor and current president Denis Sassou Nguesso in the 1997 civil war.
Denis Sassou Nguesso is a Congolese politician and former military officer who became president of the Republic of the Congo in 1997. He served a previous term as president from 1979 to 1992. During his first period as president, he headed the Congolese Party of Labour (PCT) for 12 years. He introduced multiparty politics in 1990, but was stripped of executive powers by the 1991 National Conference, remaining in office as a ceremonial head of state. He stood as a candidate in the 1992 presidential election but placed third.
The Congolese Party of Labour is the ruling party of the Republic of the Congo. Founded in 1969 by Marien Ngouabi, it was originally a pro-Soviet, Marxist–Leninist vanguard party which founded the People's Republic of the Congo. It took a more moderate left-wing stance following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and adopted social democracy as its principal ideology in 2006. Denis Sassou Nguesso is the President of the PCT Central Committee, and Pierre Moussa is the Secretary-General of the PCT.
The Second Republic of the Congo Civil War, also known as the Second Brazzaville-Congolese Civil War, was the second of two ethnopolitical civil conflicts in the Republic of the Congo which lasted from 5 June 1997 to 29 December 1999. The war served as the continuation of the civil war of 1993–1994 and involved militias representing three political candidates. The conflict ended following the intervention of the Angolan military, which reinstated former president Denis Sassou Nguesso to power.
André Ntsatouabantou Milongo was a Congolese politician who served as Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo from June 1991 to August 1992. He was chosen by the 1991 National Conference to lead the country during its transition to multiparty elections, which were held in 1992. He was also the founder and President of the Union for Democracy and the Republic (UDR-Mwinda), a political party. From 1993 to 1997, he was President of the National Assembly, and he was again a deputy in the National Assembly from 2002 to 2007.
Bruno Jean-Richard Itoua is a Congolese politician who has served in the government of Congo-Brazzaville as Minister of Higher Education since 2016. Previously he was Director-General of the National Oil Company of Congo from 1998 to 2005, Minister of Energy and Hydraulics from 2005 to 2011, and Minister of Scientific Research from 2011 to 2016.
Presidential elections were held in the Republic of the Congo on 10 March 2002. They followed the country's second civil war (1997-1999), which returned Denis Sassou Nguesso to power, and a subsequent transitional period, in which a new constitution was written and approved by referendum in January 2002.
Republic of the Congo–United States relations are the international relations between the Republic of the Congo and the United States of America.
Republic of the Congo–Russia relations refers to bilateral foreign relations between the Republic of the Congo and Russia. The Republic of the Congo has an embassy in Moscow. Russia has an embassy in Brazzaville.
Congo, officially the Republic of the Congo or Congo Republic, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, is a country located on the western coast of Central Africa to the west of the Congo River. It is bordered to the west by Gabon, to the northwest by Cameroon, to the northeast by the Central African Republic, to the southeast by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south by the Angolan exclave of Cabinda, and to the southwest by the Atlantic Ocean.
Firmin Ayessa is a Congolese politician who has served in the government of Congo-Brazzaville as Deputy Prime Minister for Civil Service, State Reform, Labour, and Social Security since 2017. As a long-time associate of President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Ayessa has held a series of key posts at the Presidency of Congo-Brazzaville; he was Director of the Civil Cabinet of the President from 1999 to 2002, deputy director of the Presidential Cabinet from 2002 to 2007, and he was Director of the Presidential Cabinet from 2007 to 2017.
Alain Akouala Atipault is a Congolese politician who served in the government of Congo-Brazzaville as Minister of Communication from 2002 to 2009. Subsequently he was Minister of Special Economic Zones from 2009 to 2015 and again from 2016 to 2017.
Presidential elections were held in the Republic of the Congo on 12 July 2009. Long-time President Denis Sassou Nguesso won another seven-year term with a large majority of the vote, but the elections were marred by accusations of irregularities and fraud from the opposition; six opposition candidates chose to boycott the elections.
The Ninjas were a militia in the Republic of the Congo, which participated in numerous wars and insurgencies in the 1990s and 2000s. The Ninjas were formed by the politician Bernard Kolélas in the early 1990s and were commanded by Frédéric Bintsamou, alias Pastor Ntoumi, when Kolelas was in exile.
Jean-Dominique Okemba is a Congolese military and political figure. He has been a special adviser to the President of Congo-Brazzaville, Denis Sassou Nguesso, since 1997, and he has also been the secretary-general of the National Security Council since 2002. He is a nephew of Sassou Nguesso.
The First Republic of the Congo Civil War, also known as the First Brazzaville-Congolese Civil War, was a conflict in the Republic of the Congo which lasted from 2 November 1993 to 30 January 1994 and was between rival militias led by former politician Bernard Kolelas, former Prime Minister Pascal Lissouba, and former President Denis Sassou-Nguesso. It was one of four instances of militia fighting within the country, setting the stage for the next three conflicts in 1997, 1998–99, and 2002. The war was a direct result of unresolved claims of election fraud in the 1992 presidential election. The First Congo Civil War and the decade of conflict that followed resulted in the deaths of over 12,000 people and the displacement of 860,000 more.
A constitutional referendum was held in the Republic of the Congo on 25 October 2015 regarding a proposal to change the constitution, primarily to modify the rules regarding presidential terms.
Presidential elections were held in the Republic of the Congo on 20 March 2016. It was the first election to be held under the new constitution that had been passed by referendum in 2015. President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who had exhausted the two-term limit imposed by the previous constitution, was allowed to run again due to the adoption of the new constitution. He won re-election in the first round of voting, receiving 60% of the vote.
Parliamentary elections were held in the Republic of the Congo on 16 July 2017, with a second round of voting following on 30 July in constituencies where no candidate secured a majority.