As the Republic of Congo moved into the final stretch of its presidential campaign, a single screenshot threatened to spread real panic. It claimed mobile networks would go dark for five days. The operator named in it has now spoken plainly.
MTN says no shutdown order ever reached it
In a statement made public on March 5, MTN told customers that its services would keep running without interruption. “No authority of the Republic of Congo has asked us to interrupt services, and we confirm that our infrastructure is operating normally,” the company said in the communiqué.
The operator framed its mission in simple terms. It exists, it said, to give clients continuous, reliable and secure access to all of its services. MTN added that its technical teams remain mobilised around that single goal, and it urged the public toward responsibility and vigilance.
The rumour that put a date on a blackout
The claim circulating on social media was precise, which is partly why it travelled so fast. It asserted that the Ministry of the Interior and Decentralisation had ordered MTN to suspend communications from March 10 to March 15, supposedly citing the sensitive electoral calendar.
That window was not chosen at random by whoever crafted the message. It covered the closing days of campaigning. It also included the silence day of March 12, when members of the military cast their ballots, and finally the main polling day itself on March 15.
For ordinary Congolese, the timing made the threat feel plausible. A network cut during a vote touches everything: mobile money, family calls, citizen reporting, and the simple reassurance of staying connected when the country is tense. MTN called the report unfounded and asked people not to relay it.
How the fake ministry note was unmasked
The Congolese Information Agency, known as the ACI, carried out its own verification and reached the same conclusion. The ministerial note being passed around, the agency confirmed, was simply false. A few telling details gave the forgery away to anyone who looked closely.
The document still carried the logo of the Gemini artificial intelligence tool in the bottom right corner. A transparent coat of arms also sat oddly at its centre. Neither belongs on a genuine official communication, and together they pointed clearly toward a fabricated image rather than a real directive.
The ACI traced the content further back in time. It found that the note had originally appeared on the social platform X back in March 2016, posted by an independent journalist. At the time it referred to a comparable situation surrounding that year’s presidential election, not the current vote.
Why an old story refused to die
The hoax did not emerge from nothing. It drew its strength from memory. In March 2016, communications in Congo were genuinely cut on the 20th and 21st, this time at the request of the Ministry of the Interior. Authorities then justified the measure on grounds of national security and public safety.
That precedent matters. Because the country had lived through a real blackout once, a recycled screenshot suggesting a repeat felt familiar rather than far-fetched. Old anxieties gave a forged document the credibility it could never have earned on its own merits.
It is a pattern worth understanding. Disinformation rarely invents fear from scratch. More often it borrows a true event, strips away its date, and lets the audience supply the rest. The 2016 cut became the unspoken evidence behind a 2026 lie, even though nothing connected them.
What the episode says about trust before a vote
The speed of MTN’s reaction, paired with an independent check by the ACI, shows how quickly a false claim now demands an institutional answer. Silence from the operator might have let the rumour harden into accepted fact across timelines and group chats well before voting began.
For readers, the takeaway is practical rather than dramatic. A leaked-looking note is not proof. Logos, watermarks and dates can be checked, and an old post can be dressed up as breaking news. Pausing before sharing remains the cheapest defence available to everyone.
MTN, for its part, returned to the message it clearly wants people to remember. Its services are working, its teams are watching, and no order to cut the lines has arrived. In a charged electoral season, that steady, almost unremarkable reassurance was the real news.
For now, the only thing confirmed about the alleged March 10 to 15 shutdown is that it was never real. The networks stayed on, the forgery stood exposed, and a four-year-old screenshot finally lost the second life it was never entitled to have. (Journal de Brazza, ACI)