Bobi Ladawa Mobutu

Last updated
Mobutu Sese Seko
​
​
(m. 1980;died 1997)​
Bobi Ladawa Mobutu
Bobi Ladawa.jpg
Bobi Ladawa in 1995, at her son's wedding
First Lady of Zaire
In office
May 1, 1980 –May 16, 1997
Children4

Bobi Ladawa Mobutu (born 2 September 1945 [1] ) also known as Mama Bobi Ladawa is the second wife and widow of Mobutu Sese Seko, who ruled Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) as President between 1965 and 1997.

Background

She was born at Dula in the western province of Équateur and attended a Roman Catholic convent school in the capital Kinshasa before embarking on a teaching career. [1] In the 1970s, she became the mistress of President Mobutu. The couple had a total of four children - Nzanga, Giala, Toku and Ndokula. [2] She bore his children before his first wife, Marie-Antoinette, died in 1977. [2] She married Mobutu in both church and civil ceremonies on 1 May 1980, on the eve of a visit by Pope John Paul II. The pope refused Mobutu's request to officiate over the ceremony. [3]

Bobi Ladawa Mobutu was known for promoting issues such as health, education and women's rights. [1] She was also customarily addressed as "Citizen Bobi" or "Mama Bobi", and frequently accompanied her husband abroad. Reportedly, she was involved in the corruption that occurred during Mobutu's rule. In 1996, a government minister who feared that he was about to be sacked in an upcoming cabinet reshuffle flew to Mobutu's palace at Gbadolite to visit the president and his family, carrying a million US dollars in his briefcase as a gift for Bobi Ladawa. When the reshuffle came, he was promoted to deputy prime minister. [4]

Mobutu was overthrown in May 1997 and fled into a luxurious exile, eased by the millions of US dollars that he had amassed during his rule. Bobi Ladawa accompanied him to his eventual final place of exile in Morocco, and was at his bedside when he died from prostate cancer in September 1997. [5]

In 1998, Bobi Ladawa alongside her son, Nzanga, created the "Mobutu Foundation" in hopes of helping young men and women in Africa reach their full potential. [6] She remains in exile, and reportedly divides her time between Rabat, where Mobutu is buried, Faro, Brussels and Paris where she owns properties. [7]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "BOBI Ladawa" (PDF). Central Intelligence Agency. 12 June 1989. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 16, 2016. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  2. 1 2 Akyeampong, Emmanuel Kwaku; Gates, Henry Louis (2012). Dictionary of African Biography. OUP USA. pp. 238–9. ISBN   978-0-19-538207-5.
  3. ↑ Schatzberg, Michael G. (1988). The Dialectics of Oppression in Zaire. Indiana University Press. p. 120. ISBN   0-253-31703-7.
  4. ↑ Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges (2002). The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History. Zed Books. p. 158. ISBN   978-1-84277-053-5.
  5. ↑ Kisangani, Emizet Francois (2016). Historical Dictionary of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 439. ISBN   978-1-4422-7316-0.
  6. ↑ Al Kamen, "SUNDAY IN THE LOOP"., Washington Post 10 October 1998.
  7. ↑ Juompan-Yakam, Clarisse (20 September 2012). "RDC : veuves de Mobutu, mais pas trop" (in French). Jeune Afrique. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
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