Why DR Congo is looking back at Mobutu : NPR

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Young people gaze up at large photographs of Mobutu Sese Seko, in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) national museum.

A charismatic and outrageously corrupt former dictator, Mobutu seized power in the 1960s and ruled the country with an iron fist for over 30 years. At the height of his power, Mobutu was courted by royalty and presidents — and put Zaire on the map with the legendary Rumble in the Jungle, the 1974 boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.

But in today’s Congo, which is politically unstable and plagued by seemingly endless armed conflict, there’s a growing sense of nostalgia for the comparatively peaceful years of Mobutu’s reign. An exhibit celebrating the former dictator’s life opened recently in the capital Kinshasa, and it’s proven a surprising success.

“To be sure, his reign wasn’t appreciated by everyone,” says Marie-Ange Makeya, an 18-year-old architecture and urbanism student visiting the exhibit.

“But at least the country was respected, and there was no war,” she adds. The sentiment is a common one. It’s also notable, given Mobutu’s reputation as one of the archetypal Cold-War African dictators.

Mobutu seized power in a coup in 1965, and within a few years, he had established a one-party state and a personality cult. State television broadcasts used to begin with an image of Mobutu in the clouds.

Backed by Western powers for his staunch anti-communism, Mobutu sought to forge a new national identity after Congo’s independence from Belgium in 1960, even banning Western-style suits and names as part of his campaign.

Mobutu’s regime was also massively corrupt: He built an ornate palace in the northern Congolese jungle and flew in luxury items on Concorde jets, all while ordinary Congolese people struggled to survive.

But in the mid-1990s, after the end of the Cold War, a rebellion that began in eastern Congo spread. Mobutu fled as the rebels closed in on Kinshasa, dying a few months later in exile in Morocco.

“It’s true that he is still a very controversial figure,” says Juvenal Munubo, a politician from eastern Congo who was invited to the exhibit. But he added that he fostered a real sense of national unity, which people remember fondly.

“We recognize that the DRC was much more stable than it is now,” Munubo said.

There were armed conflicts in the DRC during Mobutu’s reign, but nothing on the scale of the cataclysm that erupted after he was ousted. From 1997, Congo became the theatre of back-to-back regional wars in which 3-5 million people were killed, according to some estimates.

Conflict also persisted in eastern Congo after the end of those wars, and in recent years, it has flared dramatically. Rebels from the Rwanda-backed M23 group captured two major cities in eastern Congo at the start of 2025. Now, they govern swaths of territory in the mineral-rich region as a proto mini-state.

Congo remains one of the poorest countries in the world, where over 70 percent of people in the country of about 120 million people live on under $2.15 a day, according to the World Bank.

Nzanga Mobutu, one of Mobutu Sese Seko’s sons and the head of a small political party, organized the exhibit in Kinshasa. He explained that the initiative was meant first and foremost to raise awareness among young Congolese.

“Whether he was a dictator or not a dictator, I mean: What do you want? Should we let our country be attacked and our women raped?”, Nzanga Mobutu told NPR.

“We had discipline, when countries tried to attack we had a response.”

At the exhibit, numerous photos show Mobutu, looking stern and commanding, wearing his thick black glasses, signature leopard-skin hat and ebony cane.

He is also pictured beside historic world leaders such as John F. Kennedy, John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II. The message is clear: Here was a strong man who made the world take Congo seriously.

Congolese pop stars and politicians of all stripes have visited the exhibit. As has Mike Tyson, who travelled to Kinshasa last month to celebrate the anniversary of the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle boxing match.

Even the current president, Felix Tshisekedi, turned up to tour the exhibit focusing on the old dictator. It was a symbolic act. Tshisekedi’s father, Etienne Tshisekedi, was Mobutu’s most die-hard political opponent, and the president himself grew up partly in exile.

With many in Congo yearning for stability, some observers say features of Mobutu-ism are creeping back into politics. 

In September Congolese politicians swore oaths of fealty to President Tshisekedi, a ritual straight out of Mobutu’s playbook.

For some here, it’s a sign that the spirit of Mobutu — the so called Leopard of Zaire — still prowls Congo’s corridors of power.