Project ForgeCongo was named by Europeans. Congo's dictator Mobuto later changed the name of the country and the river to Zaire with the objective of Africanising names of persons and spaces. However, the name Zaire was a Portuguese alteration of Nzadi o Nzere, a local African term meaning 'River that swallows Rivers'. Zaire was the Portuguese name for the Congo river in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Which one of the following statements can be inferred from the paragraph above?
- Mobuto was not entirely successful in Africanising the name of his country
- BThe term Nzadi o Nzere was of Portuguese origin
- CMobuto's desire to Africanise names was prevented by the Portuguese
- DAs a dictator Mobuto ordered the Portuguese to alter the name of the river to Zaire
Explanation
Mobuto intended to replace European names with African ones, but the replacement name 'Zaire' he chose was itself a PORTUGUESE alteration of an African term, not the authentic African term itself — so his Africanisation effort was ironically not entirely successful. The other options misstate the passage: the original term was African (not Portuguese in origin), and nothing suggests the Portuguese 'prevented' or that Mobuto 'ordered' them to do anything (Zaire's Portuguese naming predates Mobuto by centuries).
Source: GATE ME 2019 Session 1 (Set 1) (2019)
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