Sassou Nguesso was born Antoinette Loemba Tchibota on 7 May 1941, in
Brazzaville to Pascal Loemba Tchibota and Marie-Louise Djembo. Her parents, who were originally from
Kakamoéka, divorced when she was a child. Her mother later remarried to her second husband, François Gallo Poto, a cousin of the Antoinette Gbetigbia Gogbe Yetene (d. 1977), first wife of
Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of
Zaire. Following her parents' divorce, Sassou Nguesso was raised in both
Pointe-Noire and Brazzaville. She attended elementary school in both cities, before enrolling in a girl's college in
Mouyondzi. Sassou Nguesso is a retired teacher. Sassou Nguesso has been president of a Congolese NGO, the Congo Assistance Foundation (
la Fondation Congo Assistance), since its establishment on 7 May 1984. The first lady routinely travels with her personal hairdresser, the Brazzaville-based stylist Amédée Ebono, on all official trips. In June 2016, Sassou Nguesso was
subpoenaed to appear in an American court while traveling in
Washington D.C. The case stems from an ongoing 1980 debt dispute between the American company Commisimpex and the Congolese government under President
Denis Sassou Nguesso. The company maintains that it was never compensated for its work by the Sassou Nguesso government. Antoinette Sassou Nguesso was summoned to the U.S. court to answer questions regarding her family's assets, as well as government finances; she ignored the subpoena and did not appear in court. Her lawyers invoked
diplomatic immunity, and did not understand why she was summoned about affairs of the Congolese state. Sassou Nguesso's family remained the subject of several legal and financial investigations in the U.S. and France. The
French Ministry of Justice seized a real estate complex located in the
17th arrondissement of Paris that had been purchased in Antoinette Sassou Nguesso's name. ==References==