Portrait
Eric Ntumba, a young Congolese banker, came from Kinshasa in December 2017 to participate in the Atlantic Dialogues Emerging Leaders Program of the Policy Center for the New South (PCNS) in Marrakech. At that time, when asked what his dream was, he immediately said he would like: “to become President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and bring about inclusive development, so that the country’s enormous potential can be finally transformed into power. My dream is that each Congolese child be able to fulfill his or her own dream!”
Eric Ntumba is one of those who think big and do not easily admit defeat. In Marrakech, he met several people from diverse backgrounds at the Atlantic Dialogues Conference who “enriched” his vision of the world and offered him new opportunities. He further explains that “if I had not met the Brazilian economist Otaviano Canuto, a Senior Fellow of the PCNS, I would not have signed a chapter with him on the risks of an international financial crisis in 2018 in the Atlantic Currents Report”.
In search of an alternative
He also wrote a paper on the geopolitics of Central Africa at the African Peace and Security Annual Conference (APSACO) 2019, organized in Rabat by the PCNS. His thoughts focused on the trend towards “elections without democracy” that affects his region. “In Central Africa, development indicators are the worst in Africa, he went on. It is also the region where presidents exercise power much longer than anywhere else, where young people are brutally repressed, where the electoral exercise amounts to a parody and where democracy is constantly denied, as it is reflected in this famous saying of Gabon’s former President, Omar Bongo: “One does not organize elections to end up on the losing side…”.”
While noting with interest the wave of citizen movements that has emerged across Africa, including the DRC, Eric Ntumba points out however that it is “not backed by an alternative political offer that would make it possible to have MPs, mayors, ministers”. It is this alternative that he constantly thinks about, like others from his generation.
Eric Ntumba happened to be in good hands. He grew up in a family which was in direct touch with the world of politics. His father, Alphonse Ntumba Luaba, a law professor, a former deputy minister of justice, and a former human rights minister, was one of the negotiators of the 2002 Sun City Peace Agreement, which put an end to the second war of Congo. Then, as the Secretary General of the Transitional Government (2003-07), he chaired the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) from 2011 to 2016.
Returning to the native country
Eric Ntumba attended primary school in Nancy, France, where his father obtained his Ph.D. in law, and went to secondary school in Kinshasa. After a master's degree in computer science from North-West University, South Africa, he joined the National School of Administration (ENA) in Paris at the end of 2006. Two years later, he returned directly to Kinshasa – an ‘‘obvious’’ choice for him. “I had been told that the doors were open in France and Europe, but I was convinced that it was in the RDC, in Africa, that what I had learnt would be most useful”, he explains.
Because he was determined to contribute to the construction of a notoriously vulnerable state, he first sought to join the public service at the Ministry of Planning. “I was faced with a conservative environment in which I had to claim a political affiliation on which I had not made a decision at the age of 27 years”, he remembered. He finally turned to the private sector, first in the position of Advisor to the General Directorate of the Banque congolaise (BC), then as Corporate Manager at the Banque commerciale du Congo (BCC), as well as Relationship Manager at City Bank Congo (CBC), and lastly at his current position as Head of the Corporate Banking Division at Equity Bank Congo (EBC).
Once again, he notes without complacency: “The private sector in the DRC is limited to extractive industries under the control of foreign operators, without any Congolese capital properly speaking, and that is a real problem for startups, which cannot rely on business angels for guidance and funding. Yet, Kinshasa is demonstrating a powerful creative energy. The DRC lacks a real incubation ecosystem that has demonstrated its value in Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire.” Until venture capital companies take an interest in the entrepreneurial dynamism of Congolese youth, he will continue to provide mentoring and participate in various forums on the African economy abroad.
“Realizing you are not alone”
Two years after his ADEL Program, Eric Ntumba remains committed to the PCNS, which he considers to be an “incubator of ideas”. “A conference like Atlantic Dialogues helps you readjust your ambitions, he says, and realize that you are not alone. Others think Africa is on the move, in a project of shared prosperity.”
Eric Ntumba, who is a keen reader, mentions among his references Une brève histoire de l’avenir (Fayard, 2006) an essay by Jacques Attali that offers a forward-looking perspective of a polycentric world structured around nine nations, including Egypt and Nigeria. In the world of fiction, he has a penchant for one of the great classics of African literature, Une si longue lettre (Nouvelles éditions africaines du Sénégal, 1979), by the Senegalese novelist Mariama Bâ. He has now joined her among other writers, having himself published his first novel, Une vie après le Styx (L’Harmattan, 2019). He considers that he “has taken his responsibilities” by taking up his pen. His objective is to participate in the construction of a collective memory linked to the atrocities of the Congo war, by narrating the journey of a traumatized young girl who will however find the strength to start her life over.
Eric Ntumba has much admiration for Patrice Emery Lumumba, the father of Congo’s independence, as he has for Martin Luther King, for his fight at the forefront of the civil rights movement in the United States. “His journey tells us that it only takes a handful of fully committed people to trigger a movement. I also like his formula: “In every mountain of despair, there is a stone of hope”. This stone can be any one of us.” A leader’s words …
