{Congolese authorities on Friday said they had ordered the arrest of a former army chief who is challenging President Denis Sassou Nguesso, in power for more than 30 years, in elections next month.}<\/p>\n
Speaking on state television, public prosecutor Andre Oko Ngakala said he had given instructions for the “immediate arrest… and questioning” of Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko.<\/p>\n
The instructions were given on the basis of an inquiry “into information about statements made by Mr. Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko that have been widely disseminated on the street and social networks,” he said, without giving immediate details.<\/p>\n
An AFP journalist reported that all the roads leading to Mokoko’s residence had been closed off by police.<\/p>\n
Congo’s military chief from 1987 to 1993, Mokoko is currently special representative of the African Union Commission in the neighbouring Central African Republic.<\/p>\n
Mokoko is a longtime ally of Sassou Nguesso, but on February 3 he announced his resignation as the president’s advisor on peace and security, a post he had held since 2005.<\/p>\n
On February 8, he announced plans to run in the March 20 election and challenge his former boss.<\/p>\n
Since February 13, when Mokoko held his first campaign rally, a video has been circulating on the Internet that appears to implicate him in an attempted coup d’etat.<\/p>\n
The video, which dates to the start of the last decade, has been denounced as a fraud by Mokoko’s campaign.<\/p>\n
Source:Daily Nation:[Congo orders arrest of key candidate in presidential race->http:\/\/www.nation.co.ke\/news\/africa\/-\/1066\/3085200\/-\/80qtha\/-\/index.html]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Congolese authorities on Friday said they had ordered the arrest of a former army chief who is challenging President Denis Sassou Nguesso, in power for more than 30 years, in elections next month.} Speaking on state television, public prosecutor Andre Oko Ngakala said he had given instructions for the “immediate arrest… and questioning” of Jean-Marie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000072320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[99],"byline":[2461],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-daily-nation"],"bylines":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000072320,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23363.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23363.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23363.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23363.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23363.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23363.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000072320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23363"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23363"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}