A Promise Left Hanging Since 2010
In Kintélé, just north of Brazzaville, a quiet grievance has grown into an open demand. The former owners of the land that now hosts the Denis Sassou-N’Guesso University (UDSN) say they are still waiting to be paid.
On 4 April, they gathered to press a single point. The expropriation compensation pledged to most beneficiaries in 2010 has, sixteen years later, never reached their hands.
The Collective That Refuses to Stay Quiet
The landowners have organised under a banner they call the collective of uncompensated evicted owners. They describe their predicament in blunt terms, denouncing what they consider a flagrant injustice that has dragged on far too long.
Their arithmetic is stark. According to the group, only 357 people have actually received their due so far. That figure sits against more than a thousand registered files, leaving the vast majority still empty-handed.
The Congolese State, they recall, had committed to indemnify every owner stripped of their plots. For most of those families, that commitment has remained words on paper rather than money in pocket.
Three Demands Driving the Dispute
The collective is not asking for sympathy alone. It wants the file officially reopened, so that a matter many assumed closed returns to the desks of decision-makers.
It also wants the lists of beneficiaries harmonised and brought up to date. Years of delay, the owners suggest, have left records scattered and inconsistent, complicating any fair settlement.
Above all, the group is pressing for the process to speed up. The rightful claimants still in the queue, they insist, have waited long enough and deserve prompt payment rather than further administrative drift.
A Constitution Invoked as Shield
To anchor their case, the owners turn to the country’s fundamental law. The collective’s president, Alexandre Dzabatou, pointed to the Congolese Constitution of 25 October 2015 and, specifically, its article 23.
That provision, he stressed, guarantees the right to property. It also forbids any expropriation for public use unless a fair and prior indemnity is paid to those affected.
By citing the text directly, Dzabatou frames the dispute not as a favour to be granted but as an obligation the State has yet to honour. The legal language gives the grievance a footing beyond mere frustration.
When Patience Wears Thin
The owners say years of inertia from the public authorities have tested their resolve. With little concrete movement, the collective is now weighing a more visible response to make itself heard.
Should no tangible gesture come in the coming days, the group plans to stage sit-ins outside the relevant ministries. The aim is to turn a long-running paper trail into a presence officials can no longer overlook.
Why This Story Still Matters
The Kintélé case touches a familiar tension across Congo-Brazzaville and the wider region. Large public projects can transform a landscape, yet the people displaced to make room for them often slip from view once construction is done.
The UDSN campus stands as a marker of ambition for higher education. For the families who once farmed or lived on that ground, however, it also stands as a reminder of an unfinished bargain.
What the collective seeks is, in essence, closure. They want the file acknowledged, the lists corrected and the payments completed, so that a chapter opened in 2010 can finally be settled rather than quietly forgotten.
For now, the outcome rests on whether the authorities respond. The owners have set out their terms, named their legal grounds and signalled their next move. The next step belongs to the ministries they are watching closely (Agence Congolaise d’Information).