MAKANDA KABOBI

Makanda Kabobi (March 16, 1940-September 25, 1972), was a scholar and teacher who became one of the most respected theoreticians in Zaire’s (now Congo) unique political party, the Movement Populair de la Révolution (“Popular Movement of the Revolution” M.P.R.).

PHOTO CAPTION: Makanda Kabobi. SOURCE: EA Library.

Makanda was born at Kayaya, a Lele village south of Ilebo in Kasai. Located in a forest clearing, Kayaya, had gained a reputation as the bastion of opposition to the chiefly aristocracy which dominated the Lele. Makanda’s father, Makutu Mimboyo was not an unknown figure. He had been recruited in 1914 as a member of the Force Publique, the colonial army. After World War I, Makutu was stationed at Basongo, 20 km (12 mi) downstream from llebo on the Kasai River, where he served as interpreter and orderly. Makutu sent his son Makanda Kabobi to primary schools of the Oblate Fathers of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.) in Mwembe and then to that in the commercial center of Brabanta (now Mapongu), 25 km (15 mi) west of Ilebo.

A gifted intelligent student, Makanda was recommended for the Oblate minor seminary at Laba, 80 km (50 mi) southeast of Ilebo. He matriculated in 1953, and by 1959 he had brilliantly completed a programme of Greek and Latin studies. Makanda then enrolled in the major seminary at Mayidi, about 100 km (60 mi) south of Kinshasa, where he studied scholastic philosophy. In July 1961, however, Makanda left the major seminary to enroll in the Department of Economics at Lovanium University in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa).

At Lovanium, Makanda began taking an active interest in politics. From 1963 to 1965, he served as president of the Association Générale des Etudiants de Lovanium (“General Association of Lovanium Students,” A.G.E.I.). In a Congo, woefully lacking an intellectual elite, the A.G.E.I. became a political training ground for young elite groups, later to exercise responsibilities on the national level.

As student president, Makanda oriented his programme around examining the ability of the university structure itself to fashion the intellectual elite which the country needed so desperately. As a result of these investigations, university students organised a general strike in 1964. The students demanded a greater correlation between the educational format and the real needs of the country and asked for more student influence on the university’s administration. This strike had repercussions for both the university and the nation. Not only did it lead to a series of university reforms, it also demonstrated the effectiveness of student political action.

In July 1965, Makanda graduated from Lovanium with a diploma in economics. The same month, he left the Congo for the United States, where he studied social and economic development at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. Makanda then took an interest in human resource planning, which he studied at Columbia University in New York City. When Makanda returned to Africa in 1968, he first worked as a researcher in the economic and financial section of the National Office of Research and Development (O.N.R.D.). In addition, in 1969 he joined the faculty of Lovanium University, teaching subjects relating to the social and economic problems of education. In March 1970, he left the O.N.R.D. to become, first, economic advisor, and then chief advisor to the political office of the Movement Populaire de la Révolution (M.P.R.), the country’s single political party.

In December 1970, he was promoted to the party post of national secretary for youth. In February 1972, he reached the summit of his career when he was named a political commissioner, thus becoming a member of the political office, (the M.P.R.’s highest organ), as well as one of the regime’s chief political theorists. As a political commissioner, he conceived of creating a “school of the party” the role of which would be to train the party’s staff ideologically, to serve as a place for formulating new ideas, and to raise political consciousness. While serving as a party theorist, Makanda actively worked for the success of the first extraordinary congress of the M.P.R. held in Nsele (just outside Kinshasa) during May 1972. In these meetings, he presided over the party commission working to formulate future economic options for the country.

On September 25, 1972, several months after this congress, Makanda died unexpectedly. The party school, which Makanda envisioned but never lived to see, was inaugurated after his death. In honour of this brilliant young theorist, the school was named Institut Makanda Kabobi.

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