out the news--based on just one unamed "credible source"--of the
alleged theft of $300,000 from the party's coffers by UDPS outspoken
UDPS Secretary General Jacquemain Shabani (photo above), everyone
pooh-hooed the scoop as anti-Tshisekedi propaganda.
It turns out that L'Avenir got it right after all.
In fact, I suspect that L'Avenir might even have an embed in high
circles of UDPS, given the precision and reliabilty of information it
has always given on that party and its leadership.
Today, Shabani's alleged theft was front-page news on all Kinshasa tabloids.
Self-proclaimed president Etienne Tshisekedi has now not only
suspended Shabani, but he's also suing him.
During last year's general elections, Shabani is alleged to have
convinced Tshisekedi to give him $300,000 to manufacture party
membership cards.
Shabani was in fact bamboozling Tshisekedi all along when he told him
that once those cards were sold to UDPS members for $1 or $5 a
pop--depending on the quality of the card--the party could get a
windfall of up to $10m!
An alchemist who could turn lead into gold!
The elections have come and gone. And Tshisekedi has still to see one
red cent from the proceeds of the sales of those cards.
Furious at being taken for a ride, Tshisekedi first sued, then
suspended Shabani--replacing him with Bruno Mavungu Puati.
But, according to reporter Mukebayi Nkoso of the Kinshasa tabloid
CongoNews, on June 19, most of UDPS senior leaders converged on 521,
Rue Pétunia in Limete Commune--Tshisekedi's residence.
They all threatened to resign en masse on the spot if Tshisekedi
didn't drop his lawsuit against Shabani.
UDPS had first to carry out its internal investigation, they told
Tshisekedi, before filing a lawsuit.
Tshisekedi, somewhat convinced by the argument of his top aides, is
alleged to have instructed his lawyer, Khondo wa Khondo, to withdraw
the lawsuit.
But, 24 hours later, worked up by his son, Christian Tshisekedi, the
Sphinx of Limete reversed himself again. He told Khondo he's suing
after all.
No one knows whether these UDPS top brass would resign or not.
In the event that Shabani is being sued by Tshisekedi on trumped-up
charges, I was told by one professor of Kinshasa University, then this
sad episode would come out as poetic justice to some of Shabani's
estranged siblings.
They are mad at Shabani for joining Tshisekedi who, so they claim, was
so ungrateful to their late father, Dr Shabani--a chemistry professor
at Kinshasa University and a long-time UDPS senior member--that he
didn't even bother to attend his funerals.
They further charge that Tshisekedi only used their brother as a token
Swahili-speaker in his presidential bid so as to woo the eastern
provinces where the lingua franca is Swahili.
A soap-opera in the People's Repubic of Kinshasa...
***
PHOTO: John Bompengo/Radio Okapi
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