Nord-Ubangi map, Democratic Republic of Congo

Nord-Ubangi is a Congo provincial unit located in the north-western part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that was created in 2015 when Equateur, which was previously part of the province, was divided. Its capital is Gbadolite. The province covers an area of approximately 56,644 square kilometers and more than 1.5 million people are residing in the province. The official language is French and Lingala is a common language. It is mostly of a rural nature, and the economy of the region resides on fishing, agriculture, hunting and small scale trade. It has a humid tropical climate, has moist soils along the rivers, dense tropical forests, and savanna forest cover.

History

The region that now forms Nord-Ubangi is a riverine end of the northwestern corner of Congo whose human history was long built around the Ubangi River and its tributaries, floodplains and adjacent forests, which formed its settlement, movement and exchange pattern long before the arrival of colonial maps. It was the land of a poly-ethnic mixture of peoples: Ngbandi, Mbaka, Pagibete, Ngombe, Furu, and Banda with their means of livelihood, based on fishing, floodplain crops, hunting, foraging in the forest, and exchange at riverside markets. The authority of the locality was based on chiefs and lineages and customary institutions governing the utilization of land, marriage, and arbitering of disputes, and oral traditions keep track of migration and inter-ethnic relations between the Ubangi basin and other parts of the world.

In the late nineteenth century, European infiltration continued to accelerate with riverine explorers and agents of King Leopold II charting the Ubangi, where they were able to establish trading posts and military stations and transform the basin into the extractive economy of the Congo Free State. The Congo free state then transformed under the Belgian Congo, forced labor, rubber and ivory harvesting, taxation policies as well as restructuring of administration disrupted the power structure and unsettled the local economies and population. Most rural areas were peripheral to large-scale colonial investments with missionaries and colonial governments introducing mission schools, a small number of health posts, and small transport infrastructure. Even the Ubangi as a transport and communication route was kept central, providing a passageway connecting communities of the riversides and acting as a gateway to the goods and people to all corners of the territory.

Precisely, prime examples include administrative frontiers that changed many times during the twentieth century as colonial and postcolonial powers formed and enlisted regions including Ubangi and Congo-Ubangi, a volatility that had a long-lasting effect on the leadership of the locals. The region then followed the typical postcolonial trend of weak state existence, low investment, and sporadic political struggle which were seen to create unreliability in the service delivery and maintenance of infrastructure after gaining independence in 1960. The ascendancy of Mobutu Sese Seko to national leadership brought especially strong local appeal since the Gbadolite (in the northern part of the region) became the seat of flaunty state expenditure and costly palaces. The projects undertaken by Mobutu turned Gbadolite into a visible display - including palaces, an airport that can accept even Concorde planes, and even a personal hydroelectric power plant - and refers to it as the Versailles of the Jungle.

The ruin of much of this infrastructure and the looting and decay of the same were triggered by the downfall of the Mobutu regime in the 1990s, leaving behind visible remains of divergent development in the region under authoritarian patronage. Most importantly in the long term was the 2015 découpage, the larger Equateur province was split and Nord-Ubangi was officially established as an independent province with Gbadolite as its capital.

Culture

The Nord-Ubangi have varied spiritual beliefs depending on the different ethnic groups. Nevertheless, some of them have a lot in common, including ancestor worship and the conviction in the existence of spirits in nature. Traditional healers, also referred to as ngangas, are an important part of the people as they offer herbal prescriptions and spiritual directions.

Music and dancing are also an essential part of Nord-Ubangi culture. Songs are accompanied by traditional instruments, which include drums, balafons and harps, and tell historical events, moral lessons and life in general. Dance is done on different occasions such as the harvest festivals, initiation ceremonies, and religious ceremonies.

Festivals, in turn, are very important occasions where societal members and groups of people interact. The festivals are a feast of culture that is characterized by music, dancing, food, and narrations. They are platforms of sharing, consolidation of cultural identity and imparting heritage to young generations.

It is observed that artistic expression in Nord-Ubangi manifests in a number of forms such as sculpture, beadwork and textile design. Wood carving is an art form in which craftspeople make masks, figures, and household accessories which have a cultural meaning. Adornments and ceremonial crockery work with beads, which is usually associated with status and bests.

Some forms of textile work, especially weaving, are done in some groups, with complex bright patterns and designs that re-tell cultural stories and convictions. These arts are not purely works of art but also can be used in everyday life, ceremonials.

Nord-Ubangi cuisine is marked by the use of home-grown products and the traditional approach towards cooking. Fufu (a type of dough that consists of manioc) as well as plantains, Ubangi River fish are all staple foods. The food is usually created together in which the family members and the neighbors contribute in the preparation of the food.

Language

The official government, administrative and formal language is French in Nord-Ubangi. The lingala is the national language that is mostly used in daily communication, businesses, media, and communication between people of different ethnicities. This is indicative of the bigger trend in the northwestern DRC in which French is the official language and Lingala is the lingua franca in the area.

Northern Ngbandi has local dialects that are used in various territories of the Nord-Ubangi and among them are Businga, Mobayi-Mbongo, and Yakoma. It is part of the Ubangian language family. Another local language is the Ngombe language which is used in locations near or intersecting Nord-Ubangi. Other smaller Ubangian languages, which are used by different ethnic groups in the area, are many, such as Banda and Ngbaka.

The DRC has four national languages, including Lingala, Swahili, Kikongo, and Tshiluba, in addition to French, with the vast majority of Nord-Ubangi residents speaking Lingala with their native languages. Accordingly, the Nord-Ubangi language sphere is multilingual: people normally use their native language, ethnic language, Lingala, to communicate with others in broader terms, and official or educational purposes, French.

Geography

Nord-Ubangi is a Congolese province in the north western region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is bordered to the north by the central African republic, west by the republic of the Congo, south, and east by the sisters Sud-Ubangi and Equateur. The province derives its names after the Ubangi River, which runs through its northern boundary and creates a natural boundary, not to mention a major waterway through which goods and people are transported, traded and lives sustained by the surrounding communities. The topography of the region is a mixture of the lowland plains, riverine floodplains, wetlands, and forested zones and is ecologically diverse and is also fitted to support subsistence agriculture and fishing.

The Ubangi River and its tributaries, such as the Gbadolite and Nagiri rivers, dominate Hydrologically the Nord-Ubangi. These waterways are also used to supply water that people can use in agriculture as well as in domestic purposes, but more importantly these waterways serve as major modes of transport among people and in areas where roads do not adequately serve the people. The rivers contribute towards the use of traditional methods of fishing as well as allowing cross-border and inter-provincial trade linking the Nord-Ubangi with the Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and other sections of the DRC.

Soils in the province are normally alluvial riverbank deposits that are quite fertile; uplands areas can also possess lower natural fertility lateritic soils that demand supplementary forms of cultivation. Nord-Ubangi forested areas provide timber, non-timber forest products and wildlife habitats, which form part of subsistence as well as possible economic activities. Although the province is rich ecologically, the challenges in the province include limited infrastructure, issues of seasonal flooding, and human activities that affect local ecosystems, which include agriculture, logging, and the sprawl of settlements.

The geography of Nord-Ubangi predetermines the geography of settlements with the majority of communities living along the rivers and floodplains materials of which provide water, fertile land, and ways of transportation. Gbadolite, the capital of the provinces, is close to the Ubangi river and forms an administrative, economic and logistical centre. On the whole, the geography of the province is a mixture of the tropical climate, fertile soils and well-developed rivers and the mix of opportunities and threats to development, agriculture, transport, and conservation of the environment.

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