Gabriel Oba-Apounou

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Gabriel Oba-Apounou (born 1945) is a Congolese politician and former Vice-President of the National Assembly of the Republic of the Congo.

As a native of Oyo, he is a member the Mbochi tribe and also a cousin of the Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, with whom he grew up. Gabriel left his native village after his freshmen year in high school and went to Brazzaville, the capital city, where he dreamed of becoming of Gymnastics teacher. He soon graduated from high school there and later earned his certificate to teach Gymnastics. His physical abilities attracted a couple of Colonial Army officers, who wished to enroll him in the Army.

Escaping the colonials, he went to Impfondo, a small town, to pursue teaching Gymnastics. In 1969, he returned to Brazzaville to join the Congolese Party of Labour (Parti Congolais du Travail or PCT), newly founded by Captain Marien Ngouabi. The next year he was appointed Chief of District at Abala, a great village where his mother was born. Gabriel Oba-Apounou proved himself as a talented orator at several meetings held by the Central Committee of the PCT. The leaders soon asked him in 1979 to return to Brazzaville to serve as the leader of the UJSC (Union de la Jeunesse Socialiste Congolaise - French for Union of the Congolese Socialist Youth), a subdivision of the PCT. The same year, as his cousin ascended to power, he was appointed Minister of State, Minister of the Youth and Rural Development, holding both functions at the same time. Although moving from one Ministry to another (Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Civil Instruction), he remained the leader of the Youth division of the Congolese Party of Labour (PCT) and Minister of State until 1992.

Being loyal to his cousin and party comrade Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Oba-Apounou did not collaborate with the regime of Pascal Lissouba (President from 1992 to 1997). In 1998, after the return of Sassou-Nguesso to power, he was appointed President of the Commission for Defense & Security in the National Council of the Transition (Conseil National de Transition or CNT - it served as the Parliament from 1998 to 2002). In 2001, he was elected President of the Congolese Party of Labour for the City of Brazzaville. He was then in charge of the presidential election of 2002, which Sassou-Nguesso won without a major competition. Rumors predicted that he would be the next Mayor of Brazzaville, but instead, he was appointed Vice-President of the National Assembly, having been elected to the National Assembly as a PCT candidate in the Abala constituency in Plateaux Region in the 2002 parliamentary election; he won the seat in the first round, receiving 73.63% of the vote.^[1]

Due to his years as the leader of the Union of the Congolese Socialist Youth (UJSC), he remains very popular among the people, especially the young ones who often called him "Ya Gaby". Many remember him coming to the rescue of college students who did not get their student pensions on time. He was also responsible for granting scholarships to thousands of students and sending them all over the world to study in foreign universities. He probably is the most popular official ever under Sassou-Nguesso and also one of the wealthiest ones.