Former DRC President Joseph Kabila in undated picture/courtesy A recent clip circulating on social media shows Kabila entering a Nairobi hotel where he is said to be holding a conclave with politicians opposing President Felix Tshisekedi.
Kabila, who was president between 2001 and 2019, is a political rival of President Felix Tshisekedi and has accused the incumbent president of using the courts to settle political scores.
A video seen by the Star shows Kabila being chauffeured to an unidentified hotel.
His visit is reportedly expected to trigger a diplomatic protest from the DRC and could reignite old tensions between Nairobi and Kinshasa.
The undated meeting is said to have taken place on Monday in Karen, where he has stayed several times in recent months, and Kabila has arranged to meet his former prime minister, Matata Ponyo Mapon.
Ponyo, who was himself sentenced to 10 years of forced labour by the Constitutional Court on 20 May for embezzlement of public funds, had disappeared from public view.
The Africa Report, reported that a member of Ponyo’s entourage said that he had accepted the invitation, according to the publication.
Several figures from the Front Commun pour le Congo (FCC), Kabila’s political platform, will also take part in the meeting.
Among them are the former chief of staff to Kabila, Néhémie Mwilanya Wilondja; the FCC’s crisis cell coordinator, Raymond Tshibanda; former minister José Makila; and former governor of Lualaba, Richard Muyej.
Several members of the former president’s inner circle will also be present, including his adviser Kikaya Bin Karubi and Patient Sayiba Tambwe.
And Moise Katumbi? The opposition leader was invited but will not take part in the meeting or be represented. Delly Sesanga and Jean-Marc Kabund will also not make the trip, although they were invited.
In contrast, Martin Fayulu, another heavyweight of the opposition, told The Africa Report that he had not been approached. The absentees contacted said they did not appreciate that the gathering was organised around Kabila in Nairobi.
For several months, Kabila has been reportedly trying to reposition himself as a central actor in the political arena of the DRC.
From February to June, he orchestrated a gradual return to the media sphere through various public statements and by returning to Congolese territory, in Goma, a city under the control of M23 rebels in the ongoing eastern Congo conflict.
Kabila, was sentenced to death two weeks by a high military court on charges of treason, war crimes and other serious offences, in connection with the ongoing conflict in the country’s east.
Kabila was sentenced in absentia for alleged collaboration with the Rwanda-backed rebel group, M23, which launched lightning offensives in January this year and seized swaths of territory, including the strategic eastern hub of Goma.
The group’s advance resulted in more than 3,000 deaths and the displacement of close to a million people.
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