When presented in the editorial office of WorldOn September 30, Ephrem Yalike Ngonzo seems consumed by anxiety. His gaze moves, he searches for words, his expression is broken. This 29-year-old Central African journalist has been waiting for months for his conscience to be eased. “I contributed to keeping my country in chaoswhispers. Today I want to denounce everything to make amends, to free myself from my shame and my regrets. »
To reach Paris, this kind man had to flee the Central African Republic and death threats from the Russian private military company Wagner, now omnipotent in Bangui. To measure this power, Ephrem Ngonzo is well placed, who was, for two and a half years, between 2019 and 2022, in charge of relations between the mercenaries and the local press. In other words, by his own admission, the man of the “disinformation” and “hate messages”.
It took him a year and a half to escape the system of which, in a sense, he had become a prisoner. He finally achieved this with the help of the African Whistleblower Protection Platform. For eight months, the world and its international partners, coordinated by Forbidden Stories, a network of investigative journalists created in 2017 to continue the work of silenced reporters, investigated the history of this particular type of “repentants” and, through it, the maneuvers of Wagner in the Central African Republic. , a country that was the laboratory of the group’s influence techniques on the African continent.
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Ephrem Ngonzo’s life changed one morning in November 2019. At that time, he was the very young editor-in-chief of Central African potentiala popular online media outlet in the country, when your phone rings. His interlocutor introduces himself as a member of the “Russian mission in the Central African Republic”, a name behind which Wagner hides his communication activities since the arrival of the first mercenaries in 2018.
The appointment is scheduled for the afternoon. In a café in Bangui, Ephrem Ngonzo discovers a slightly fat Russian wearing a cap. This stranger introduces himself under the nickname “Micha”; It is not possible for him to reveal his identity. The journalist finds him. “very nervous”. He has a gun on his belt. Your proposal? A secret collaboration.
This “Micha” so concerned about his anonymity, the world and his partners can now reveal his name: Mikhail Mikhailovich Prudnikov. The 37-year-old, who first participated in Nachi, a pro-Putin youth movement, is one of the leaders of Central African Republic Politology, one of the main components of Wagner’s disinformation network on the continent.
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