A Tebboune loyalist at the Ministry of Communication

Appointed Minister of Communication on Sunday, 3 September, this university professor, who has travelled through several political parties in search of a post that matches his ambitions, declares himself motivated to guarantee his mentor a second presidential term. As soon as he took office, he stepped up his meetings with the heads of the various national media. Directors of news websites, directors of private television channels and editors of the written press. The only slogan: mobilise for the re-election of the current tenant of the El-Mouradia palace. 

It could not be otherwise for a man who owes his promotion to Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who appointed him chargé de mission to the President of the Republic as soon as he was sworn in. However, he did not retain this post for long because of his excessive servility towards the former Chief of Army Staff, General Ahmed Gaïd Salah, who died a week after Tebboune's inauguration.

Believing he was doing the right thing, the new adviser to the head of state, barely two months after his appointment, during a ceremony organised at the University of Algiers 3 where he had taught on 1 February, intervened to invite the students to dedicate their dissertations to the person of the late Chief of Army Staff.  

The next day, just as he was about to cross the entrance gate reserved for staff working at the presidential palace, a non-commissioned officer of the Republican Guard took away his badge and asked him to go home. It took him some time to realise that the reason for his dismissal from the presidency was his speech at the university. He let the storm pass and resumed contact with the president, who could not forget how much Mohammed Laagab had done for him during his election campaign, when everyone had abandoned him at the behest of General Wacini Bouazza, then Director General of Internal Security (DGSI), who was doing everything he could to win over his protégé. The result is well known. Gaïd Salah decided to appoint Tebboune as President of the Republic, and the head of internal security now languishes in a military prison where he has been sentenced to 16 years in prison with reduction to the rank of trooper (soldier without rank). 

After being forgotten for some time, Mohamed Laagab was rescued by his friend, the President of the Republic. On 22 April 2022, he was appointed member of the presidential third of the Council of the Nation (the Algerian Senate). A highly remunerated position with many advantages acquired for life. It was the waiting room for a long-coveted post that he finally conquered after so many years of patience: Minister of Communication.

While he was still a student, the country was experiencing a spectacular rise of Islamism. The Islamic Salvation Front had the wind at its back and was knocking on the door of power. Like many of his Arabic-speaking peers, Mohamed Laagab was well under the influence of Islam. He joined the Muslim Brotherhood movement represented by Sheikh Mahfoud Nahnah's HAMAS (now MSP). As a student at the Institute of Information and Communication, he practised journalism far from newsrooms. Moreover, he has no talent for field journalism. Press coverage, reporting, interviews or investigations are not his thing. He got to know the world of the press from a distance. He published some jokes, sayings and proverbs in the entertainment section of the weekly El-Aqida, based in Constantine, 500 km east of Algiers. He did the same a few years later in Kawaliss, a publication little known to Algerian readers. 

In 1995, for his master's thesis, he chose as his topic "Contemporary Islam in the Algerian media: examples from the written press (El-Mounqidh, El-Aqida and Ennahdha)". 

Once he had finished his studies, like all Algerians, he was called up for two years of military service. Tebboune's future Minister of Communication tried to get out of this duty by offering the chilling sum of 300,000 Algerian dinars to an army officer, Captain Mahfoufi Mahfoud, promoted to general on 5 July 2022. The young captain was tricked by a shameless officer and Mohammed Laagab, considered insubordinate by the authorities, was arrested and sent to Sétif where he did his military service as a private without rank, while all university students do this period at the Reserve Officers' Training School (EFOR) in Blida or at other naval (Tamentfoust) or armoured schools in Batna. After 6 months of military training, they are assigned to different military zones with the rank of officer. The best were given the rank of second lieutenant and the rest were given the rank of aspirant. However, the rebels who tried to avoid the barracks, as was the case with our minister, were sent to the barracks for Troops (HDT) to be assigned after six months to the Bataillon de Corvée et Service (BCS). For a period of 18 months.  

After this period, Mohammed Laagab returned to Algiers, where he got married and started looking for a job in line with his ambitions. 

He toured the political parties, especially those close to the government. He ended up in the TAJ party, founded by MSP dissident Mohamed Ghoul, former Minister of Public Works, now in prison. Earlier, in 2004, he almost went behind bars when his email was found in the house of Allalou H'mida, right-hand man of Hassan Hattab, leader of the Armed Islamic Groups (GIA). Allalou is an old acquaintance of the current Minister of Communication. He used to address him as "dear childhood friend". Mohamed Laagab was only saved by the intervention of an agent of the Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS) who was preparing his master's thesis under his guidance at the University of Algiers.

As he wandered between the various political parties, he became involved in a series of bizarre affairs. This enabled him to acquire, in record time, a sumptuous villa in Douéra, in the chic suburbs of Algiers, and a flat on the heights of the capital, in Dely-Brahim, as well as his father's fully restored house in Dellys, his home town. 

He moved around a lot in political and military circles, making friends with many army officers and politicians, including Tebboune, whom he had met during his short desert crossing, when he spent long hours in the control room of the Echourouk television station. The welcome he received from some of the journalists in the Echourouk group enabled some of them to obtain posts as directors of public press organs and advisers to the President of the Republic. Among them was the new Minister of Communication, Mohammed Laagab.