Talk:Albert Ndele

Albert Ndele and the premiership
I appreciate your concern about this matter. For some time on Wikipedia Albert Ndele was listed as de facto prime minister. This disseminated into other articles in what appears to be a bad case of WP:CIRCULAR. You see, on September 5 1960 the first prime minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, was fired by the president. He was replaced with Joseph Ileo. The two of them sort of played a game of tug and war over the government until September 14, when Colonel Joseph Mobutu engineered a coup that replaced the parliamentary system of government with a "College of Commissioners-General". Justin Marie Bomboko, former foreign minister, was selected to be chairman of the College. In that capacity, he became the new head of government of the Congo and its de facto prime minister (or the proper successor to the holder of the prime minister's office). Albert Ndele was chosen to be vice-chairman of the College, in-effect becoming the successor to the holder of the post of deputy prime minister. For some reason, on this article, it was asserted that Ndele in fact first served as chairman of the College, making him head of government for a time. No source I have found has ever supported this, and all list Bomboko as chairman and Ndele as vice-chairman throughout the College's entire existence ("The Congo since independence, January 1960-December, 1961" by Catherine Hoskyns, for example). So the "Ndele premiership" appears to have been a myth born on Wikipedia. All of the foreign language Wikis appear to have gotten it from here (most embarrassing!). I intend to now lay it to rest.-Indy beetle (talk) 17:53, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I actually tried looking it up to verify this. I think that the Congo Crisis is a very unexplored area of history. --Blemby (talk) 23:34, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
 * This is all fine-- but there is still no explination nor any fix on this Albert Ndele page. If you put this in the article, then readers can actually read this? tahc chat 17:05, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I think has handled this. I've done my best to correct all the other pages for consistency. And I don't see what further explanation is needed. The article mentions that Ndele was vice chairman of the College, and that's really all that's necessary. -Indy beetle (talk) 22:48, 25 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Since other wiki's still claim he was prime minister, it would much better if this article explains why he was considered to be de facto prime minister by some people. If you both feel unqualified to do this, it should include what ever is known (from the text above) to assist in that. tahc chat 17:38, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
 * ( a Wikipedia editor with a good background knowledge on the Congo Crisis, may be able to help) I think you may have misunderstood my point. To be clear: the notion that Ndele was in anyway the head of government of the Congo or de facto prime minister is drawn from the misconception that at one time he was chairman of the College of Commissioners-General. It is a misconstruction. Ndele was never chairman of the College. Bomboko was. The reason why it was ever "believed" that Ndele was ever chairman was probably because some Wikipedia editor a long time ago made a good faith edit that was incorrect. There is no one in any published, reliable, academic source that has ever made such an interpretation, far as I've seen. To go out of our way to explain a misunderstanding some editor made a long time ago makes no sense, and could be a violation of policy. -Indy beetle (talk) 20:52, 26 June 2017 (UTC)


 * At most there could be a comment only viewable when editing. I don't think we should draw attention to this error, especially on a WP:BLP case because Ndele is alive and having strange innuendo about his role w/r/t Lumumba et al. should be avoided. --Blemby (talk) 00:00, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
 * In response to the ping: let's remember that we have a duty to report what WP:RS say above all. If absolutely necessary, a footnote saying that Ndele is sometimes wrongly attributed a prime ministerial position might be helpful. Otherwise, I don't think it's possible to be a de facto prime minister, since that's a de jure constitutional title - a de facto political leader, perhaps. —Brigade Piron (talk) 15:10, 27 June 2017 (UTC)