Mobutu Sese Seko, born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu on 14 October 1930 in Lisala, Équateur Province, Belgian Congo, was a member of the Ngbandi ethnic group. His mother, Marie Madeleine Yemo, was a hotel maid who fled to Lisala to escape a local chief's harem, and his father, Albéric Gbemani, was a cook for a Belgian judge who died when Mobutu was eight. Raised by an uncle and grandfather, his family moved frequently. He attended the Christian Brothers School, a Catholic mission boarding school in Coquilhatville (now Mbandaka), where he excelled academically, ran the class newspaper, and learned fluent French from the Belgian judge's wife, though he was known for pranks and expelled in 1949 for rebellious behavior, leading to seven-year conscription into the Force Publique instead of prison. In the military (1949–1956), he rose from clerk to sergeant major, the highest rank for Africans, while self-educating through European newspapers and books on figures like Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, and Machiavelli, and passing an accounting course. Discharged in 1956, he became a full-time journalist for L'Avenir in Léopoldville, later editor of Actualités Africaines, writing under a pseudonym. In 1958, he trained in journalism in Belgium, joined the Congolese National Movement (MNC), befriended Patrice Lumumba (serving as his aide and informing for Belgian intelligence), and represented him at the 1960 Brussels independence conference. After Congo's independence on 30 June 1960, he was appointed secretary of state for national defense and Chief of Staff of the Army in July. On 14 September 1960, with US and Belgian support, he staged a bloodless coup, neutralizing President Kasa-Vubu and Prime Minister Lumumba, establishing a College of Commissioners-General; Lumumba was arrested by Mobutu's troops, transferred to Katanga, and executed on 17 January 1961. He returned power to Kasa-Vubu in 1961 but remained Army commander in chief, then seized the presidency in a second bloodless coup on 24 November 1965, ruling with sweeping powers until 1997. Positions included Chief of Staff of the Congolese Army (1960–1965), President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1965–1971), and President of Zaire (1971–1997); he was Chairperson of the Organisation of African Unity (1967–1968), founder and leader of the Popular Movement of the Revolution (MPR, the sole party from 1967–1990), and self-promoted to Field Marshal in 1983. During his dictatorship, he suspended parliament in 1966, launched an 'authenticity' campaign renaming the country Zaire (1971), himself Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa za Banga (1972), and cities like Léopoldville to Kinshasa (1966), while banning Western dress and promoting the abacost tunic. The Zairianization policy nationalized foreign firms (1973–1974), awarding them to allies and relatives, leading to economic collapse. He cultivated a cult of personality with ubiquitous portraits and titles like 'Guide of the Revolution,' won sham elections in 1970, 1977, and 1984 with over 99% votes, and favored the army, making 90% Ngbandi by 1980 with a Special Presidential Division of loyalists. His rule was marked by kleptocracy, embezzling an estimated $4–15 billion while impoverishing Zaire, stealing 60% of the 1970 budget, and amassing fortunes in palaces, jets, and a Paris mansion; nepotism placed relatives in key posts. Human rights abuses included responsibility for Lumumba's death, public executions (e.g., four ministers hanged in 1966 for a coup plot), torture and murder (e.g., Pierre Mulele in 1968), suppression of opposition, and torture of journalists by the DSP and SARM; scandals involved Zairianization looting and entrenched corruption noted by the IMF. Personally, he married first wife Marie-Antoinette Gbiatibwa Gogbe Yetene in 1955 (she died of heart failure in 1977), then Bobi Ladawa in 1980, fathering at least 16 children, including Nyiwa, Ngombo, Manda, Konga, Ngawali, Yango, Yakpwa (Yaki), Kongulu, and Ndagbia with his first wife; Nzanga, Giala, Toku, and Ndokula with his second; and Yalitho, Tende, and Ayessa with mistress Kosia Ngama (Bobi's twin). Ousted by Laurent-Désiré Kabila in May 1997, he exiled to Morocco and died of prostate cancer on 7 September 1997 in Rabat, buried in Rabat's Christian cemetery.