Congo's ex-president Yhombi-Opango dies of coronavirus

Jacques Joaquim Yhombi-Opango, former president of the Republic of the Congo, has died after contracting coronavirus, his family said..

Yhombi-Opango died in a Paris hospital on Monday. He was 81.

Yhombi-Opango was ill before he contracted the virus, his son told AFP news agency.

He led Congo-Brazzaville from 1977 until he was toppled in 1979, being ousted by the country's current leader, Denis Sassou Nguesso.

Born in 1939 in the country's northern Cuvette region, Yhombi-Opango was an army officer who rose to power after the assassination of president Marien Ngouabi.

The troubled oil-rich former French colony was aligned with the Soviet Union during Ngouabi's 1968-1977 rule.

Accused of taking part in a coup plot against Sassou Nguesso, Yhombi-Opango was jailed from 1987 to 1990. He was released a few months before a 1991 national conference that introduced multi-party politics in the central African country.

He founded the Rally for Democracy and Development party but lost in a 1992 presidential election.

Yhombi-Opango later allied with elected president Pascal Lissouba, becoming his prime minister between 1994 and 1996.

When civil war broke out in Congo in 1997, Yhombi-Opango fled into exile in France.

He was finally able to return home in 2007, but then divided his time between France and Congo because of his health problems.

Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2020/03/congo-president-yhombi-opango-dies-coronavirus-200331073802737.html

This is just crazy

When will coronavirus start dealing with our corrupt polithiefians na starting from Abba Kyari?? We need total overhaul before this country can move forward.. Now am getting dissapointed

Corona why??

Corona pls take Abba Kyari and return Yaradua to us...

Pls take Allison Diezani and return Dora Akunyili to us.....

Take Yaya Bello and return El Rufai..

God pls! Take this disease out of this world.
The stay @ Home is taking people's livelihood outta their hands.


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Our leaders need to be taught the lesson of their life cos of their ineptitude. They thought covid-19 will only affect the masses alone and that's the reason they left it to enter unabated. How I wish this Corona virus started from the dullard himself? I'm very sure all of them will get their shares of this Corona pandemic
They may not die but they should share the accompanied pains. Never will they joke with our health system again. This pandemic will surely change lot of things if they will learn.

R.I.P

RIP....

RIP

Nobody dies of other health related ailments. Every dead now is Corona related... nice

Nobody:

Conspiracy theorists:
He was killed and corona virus is not the cause of death there is a cover up
He is anti trump so God is punishing him, He is an agent of NWO, he is a soviet communist, God is punishing him for his actions in Congo including assasin work

It looks like the danm CORONAVIRUS is old people sickness,

It keep picking and killing elders around the world !

RIP

Like I said earlier...

My problem is this inverter in my house.. it will tell me battery low and cut off my power supply only to reserve enough power to fan itself throughout the day.. what manner of fukkery is that ?

Bubu na your colleague be that oo. Pls do like a man.. God no go shame u

Hian this man is Buharis junior ooo

May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace!!!

Sad.
RIP

Someone should direct corona to the doorsteps of our enemies of States and treasury looters,

But he was already ill.
The illness would have killed him nevertheless.
COVID 19 hastened his exit
RIP

Ok

If you are already ill, your chances of surviving are very slim

Early life

Yhombi-Opango was born on 12 January 1939[1] in Fort Rousset (now Owando) in Cuvette Region, in the north of the Congo.[2]
Career

Under President Marien Ngouabi, Yhombi-Opango was Army Chief of Staff (with the rank of Major); he was suspended from that position on 30 July 1970, but subsequently restored to it.[3] He was a member of the ruling Congolese Labour Party (PCT) and was associated with the party's right-wing.[2] Leftist elements in the PCT claimed in a broadcast on Voice of the Revolution radio on 22 February 1972 that Yhombi-Opango was trying to take power in a rightist coup and that he had ordered the arrest of members of the PCT Political Bureau. This claim was part of an unsuccessful leftist coup attempt led by Lieutenant Ange Diawara.[4] Yhombi-Opango became a member of the Central Committee of the PCT in 1972. He was then promoted to the rank of Colonel and became a member of the PCT's Political Bureau in January 1973.[2] He served as Secretary-General of the Council of State until being moved to the post of Council of State delegate in charge of Defence on 9 November 1974.[5]

Following the assassination of Ngouabi in March 1977, Yhombi-Opango became Head of State. He served in office for nearly two years until being forced to resign in February 1979.[6] Accused of attempting to form a "rightist faction" in the PCT, he was subsequently held in detention for several years by his successor, President Denis Sassou Nguesso.[7] In addition to being placed under house arrest, he was expelled from the PCT and his property was confiscated in 1979; furthermore, he was demoted from the rank of general to that of private, according to an announcement on 20 October 1979.[8] Sassou Nguesso announced Yhombi-Opango's release when the former was sworn in for a second term as President on 10 November 1984,[7][9] citing "the interest of national unity and peace".[7]

In July 1987, 20 officers were arrested for allegedly plotting a coup, and a commission investigating the plot implicated Yhombi-Opango, along with Captain Pierre Anga.[10] In September 1987, Yhombi-Opango was arrested in connection with this plot.[9] Sassou Nguesso announced his release, along with all other political prisoners, on 14 August 1990, in a move marking the 30th anniversary of Congolese independence.[11] At the February–June 1991 National Conference, some delegates accused Yhombi-Opango and Sassou Nguesso of complicity in Ngouabi's assassination.[12]

Afterwards, Yhombi-Opango was the candidate of his party, the Rally for Democracy and Development (RDD), in the August 1992 presidential election, taking sixth place with 3.49% of the vote.[13] In his native Cuvette Region, he placed second, with 27% of the vote, behind Sassou Nguesso.[14] He allied with President Pascal Lissouba and Lissouba's party, the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS), in the first round of the 1993 parliamentary election, held in May, and after the election Lissouba appointed him as Prime Minister on 23 June 1993. The opposition contested the results, however, and a severe political dispute erupted, with the opposition setting up a rival government.[15] Yhombi-Opango resigned on 13 January 1995 so that Lissouba would be free to consult other parties in the formation of a new government; he was promptly reappointed as Prime Minister, with a new government—including four members of the opposition Union for Democratic Renewal (URD)—being named on 23 January.[16]

Some members of UPADS who were from Lissouba's own Téke ethnic group called for Yhombi-Opango's resignation in 1996 because they wanted the Prime Minister to be a Téke as well.[17] As a result, Yhombi-Opango resigned on 23 August 1996;[18] Lissouba appointed Charles David Ganao to replace him on 27 August.[17][18]

Sassou-Nguesso's visit to Owando, Yhombi-Opango's political stronghold, in May 1997 led to an outbreak of violence between his supporters and those of Yhombi-Opango.[19] Following this incident, a civil war began in June, leading to Lissouba's ouster in October 1997; Yhombi-Opango supported Lissouba during the war,[20] serving as leader of the Presidential Majority,[21] and after Sassou-Nguesso's victory he fled into exile[20] in Cote d'Ivoire and France.

In December 2001, Yhombi-Opango joined two other exiled politicians, Lissouba and Bernard Kolélas, in rejecting the electoral process begun under Sassou-Nguesso, saying that it was not transparent.[22] Along with Lissouba and Kolélas, he called for a passive boycott of the January 2002 constitutional referendum.[23]

Yhombi-Opango was sentenced in absentia to 20 years of hard labor for embezzlement[24][25] in late December 2001.[24] Also convicted in this trial were Lissouba (who received a 30-year sentence) and three other former members of the government (former Prime Minister Claude Antoine Dacosta, former Minister of Finance Nguila Mougounga Nkombo, and former Minister of Oil Benoit Koukebene).[24] The charge of embezzlement was based on an accusation that Lissouba, Yhombi-Opango, and the others made a corrupt deal with Occidental Petroleum to sell oil to the company for 150 million US dollars in 1993; the sum was said to amount to less than a fourth of the oil's actual value. The money from this deal was allegedly never placed in the Treasury; instead, part of the money was said to have been placed in a private bank account in Belgium, while the remainder was said to have been used for electoral campaigning.[24][26] Claudine Munari, who had been Director of the Cabinet, said in defense of the accused that there was no alternative to the deal and that the money was actually used to pay wage arrears and organize the 1993 parliamentary election.[26] The accused were also charged with misappropriating public funds, but this charge did not result in a conviction.[24]

A dispute in the RDD leadership emerged in 2005. Yhombi-Opango, still in exile, asked the party leadership in Congo-Brazzaville to approach the governing PCT, but Saturnin Okabé, who led the party in Yhombi-Opango's absence, refused to do so. Yhombi-Opango reacted angrily to this refusal.[27]

An amnesty for Yhombi-Opango was approved by the Congolese Council of Ministers on 18 May 2007.[28] He returned to Congo-Brazzaville on 10 August 2007, and a thousand of his supporters were present to welcome him.[25] At a meeting of the RDD Steering Committee on 8 September 2007, Yhombi-Opango reassumed the leadership of the party from Interim President Saturnin Okabé and Secretary-General Martial Mathieu Kani. On this occasion, Yhombi-Opango announced his intention to reorganize the party and improve its position on the national political scene.[29]
Personal life

Yhombi-Opango spent over a year in France for medical reasons before returning to Brazzaville on 1 June 2013.[30]

On 30 March 2020, he died from COVID-19 in France.[31]

SARCE: WIKIPEDIA

Sad