Patrice Lumumba lookalike goes viral supporting DR Congo at AFCON 2025

Congolese supporter Michel Nkuka Mboladinga has become a social media star by posing like a statue of the country’s assassinated independence hero, Patrice Lumumba, during matches at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

Nicknamed “Lumumba Vea” because of his striking resemblance to the late leader, the always sharply dressed fan raises his right arm and stands perfectly still, copying the pose of Lumumba’s memorial statue in Kinshasa. He holds this position for the entire duration of the matches.

“I stay still to give strength to the team, to pass energy on to the players,” Nkuka Mboladinga told the Associated Press in an interview this week in his hotel room in Casablanca.

He said it would be his last interview before the team faced Algeria on Tuesday in Rabat. Nkuka Mboladinga appeared visibly exhausted by the constant media attention following the Democratic Republic of Congo’s first three matches in the tournament, and frustrated that nearly all media outlets had misspelled his name.

Still, he said he was grateful for the attention and happy to bring Lumumba’s spirit in support of the team.

“He is the one who gave us the freedom to express ourselves,” he said of the Congolese leader. “He sacrificed his life to give us freedom. So he is a hero to us. Lumumba is a spirit to us, a role model for us.”

A symbol

Patrice Lumumba is widely regarded as the nationalist leader who helped end Belgian colonial rule in Congo in 1960. He became the first prime minister of the newly independent country and was seen as one of Africa’s most promising leaders, but he was killed less than a year later during a conflict with a Belgian-backed secessionist movement in the mineral-rich Katanga region.

Questions remain about the extent of Belgium’s and the United States’ involvement in his death. A Belgian parliamentary commission later concluded that the government was “morally responsible” for Lumumba’s killing. In 1975, a U.S. Senate commission found that the CIA had drawn up a separate — and ultimately failed — plan to assassinate the Congolese leader.

For many Congolese, Lumumba remains a symbol of what the country could have achieved after independence. Instead, it fell into decades of dictatorship that drained its vast mineral wealth. “He is like a member of the family,” Nkuka Mboladinga says of the visionary leader.

Before each match, Nkuka Mboladinga trains by standing completely still for 45 to 50 minutes at a time. And now that the DR Congo has qualified for the knockout stages, he is also preparing for the possibility of remaining in “statue mode” through extra time and penalty shootouts — while the fans around him are anything but calm.

“It’s difficult,” he admits, “to stay still while supporters are dancing around and behind me. Everyone plays their role; they play theirs, and I play mine.”

He has not yet met the players, but says he has heard that they appreciate what he is doing. “The players know me, but I haven’t spoken to them personally yet. They are extremely happy with what I’m doing,” he concluded.