By Gilbert MUHIKA/Political Analyst

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, seizing power has never been a parliamentary affair—it has always been a shadow operation. Since gaining independence in 1960, every president, rebellion, and transition has relied on a hidden master of espionage. These figures are invisible, feared, and indispensable.

The Congolese intelligence services are not merely state apparatuses; they are the state itself. When the National Security Agency coughs, the Presidential Palace trembles. When the National Documentation Center listens, ministers fall silent. When the National Intelligence Agency arrests, the judiciary complies.

Why? Because the Congo emerged from the Cold War, coups, and deep distrust. On June 30, 1960, independence was declared. By September 14, Mobutu had already staged his first coup. Between these two dates: a void. A void the security services would fill.

Their true mission was never written into law. Officially, they gather political, economic, and social intelligence. Unofficially, they do three things:

• Protect the leader—from enemies, the army, and the people.
• Monitor everyone—opposition figures, ministers, bishops, students, and the diaspora.
• Instill fear—so no one dares challenge the system.

From 1960 to 1990, one system, three faces. Three men shaped Congo’s culture of fear:

• Victor Nendaka Bika, the “Oufkir” of Congo: A former nurse who transformed the colonial security apparatus into a political police force. He established the golden rule: the head of security answers only to the head of state, not ministers.
• Seti Yale, the Grey Eminence: A professional who trained under Israeli and U.S. agencies. He built the National Documentation Center (CND), the Congolese KGB, installing wiretaps, surveillance, and torture as standard methods.
• Honoré Ngbanda, “Terminator”: He industrialized the system. The CND became a state within a state, with spies in every ministry and embassies worldwide. Terror extended even to Europe.

The red thread from 1960 to 1990 was simple: “Whoever controls intelligence controls power.” Mobutu understood this early. He multiplied intelligence agencies—CND, National Intelligence Service (SNIP), Military Security Service (SARM), Presidential Security Division (DSP)—ensuring they monitored one another. Yet he never allowed one man to control the machine indefinitely. Nendaka was dismissed in 1965, Yale sidelined, and Ngbanda ousted in 1990.

By 1997, the system collapsed with Mobutu. But it did not die—it mutated. The acronyms changed—SNIP, AND, then ANR—but the basements remained. So did the methods.

This series uncovers 30 years of history from the underground. It begins with an infirmary worker hastily appointed in October 1960 and ends with a “Terminator” swept away by the winds of democracy in 1990. In between: wiretaps, disappearances, fatal transfers, and twisted coups.

Welcome to Congo’s real power story—a tale never broadcast on the radio, only whispered in windowless offices.

It all started in October 1960. Congo was just three months old. Mobutu had just overthrown Lumumba. A man was needed to secure the state—a man who asked no questions. That man was Victor Nendaka Bika…

“The Oufkir of Congo: How Victor Nendaka Built the Power-Shattering Machine”

He never wore a uniform. Yet from 1960 to 1965, this nurse-turned-spy shook Congo to its core. Victor Nendaka Bika, the first director of the National Security Agency, established the rules of the game: intimidating ministers, manipulating documents, and delivering opponents to their fate. A dive into the archives of terror.

Leopoldville, December 13, 1961: The day police staged a coup against their own minister.

The scene unfolded in the offices of the National Security Agency. Interior Minister Christophe Gbenye, believing he still held power, signed a decree dismissing Victor Nendaka, the agency’s director, as “open to reassignment.”

Nendaka’s response came in the form of a single phone call.

“Nendaka turned to Mobutu for support. The latter immediately dispatched armed troops to surround the National Security Agency’s offices. They threatened to arrest and detain Christophe Gbenye if he intervened.”

Days later, the Moniteur Congolais published the decree: Nendaka remained. Gbenye was gone.

This was the first time in Congo’s history that a police chief threatened a minister with the military… and won. The “Oufkir model” was born.

January 16, 1961: The Handwritten Note That Killed Lumumba

Four decades later, an elderly man still held his trump card—a yellowed sheet of paper.

“When news broke that Tshombe would welcome Lumumba, the evacuation plans for three prisoners were altered by André Lahaye, a National Security Agency agent […] I kept this document,” Victor Nendaka testified.

This document was the transfer order for Patrice Lumumba, Maurice Mpolo, and Joseph Okito to Elisabethville. As chief administrator of the National Security Agency, Nendaka organized the convoy. On the night of January 17, the three men were executed.

His defense?

“Kasa-Vubu approved the transfer because, like me, he believed Lumumba would not be killed in Katanga. In our traditions, we did not kill our adversaries—palaver under the baobab was the rule.”

Historians note: “Victor Nendaka, who had poor relations with Lumumba since the 1960 elections, was suspected of involvement in this incident.”

October 1960: The Nurse Who Turned Security into a Political Weapon

One month after Mobutu’s first coup, Nendaka was appointed director of the National Security Agency.

“Nendaka quickly reorganized the institution, transforming it into an effective intelligence-gathering service.”

He founded the National Investigations Bureau (BIN), shifting its mission from fighting thieves to profiling, monitoring, and neutralizing Lumumbists. He joined Mobutu’s Binza Group and became a key figure in the shadow government controlling Congo.

Why was he nicknamed the “Oufkir of Congo”? Like the Moroccan general, Nendaka imposed three rules that haunted Congo for 60 years:

• Security above the law: He surrounded his office with troops when a minister tried to fire him.
• Intelligence as a political project: A member of the Binza Group, he helped install and remove prime ministers with CIA backing.
• Plausible deniability: On Lumumba, he always claimed, “It wasn’t me—it was D’Aspremont, Tshombe, Lahaye.”

In 1965, Mobutu sidelined him—for being too powerful. But the machine was already in motion. Seti Yale and Honoré Ngbanda’s “Terminator” would only industrialize Nendaka’s methods.

In our next installment: How Seti Yale transformed the small BIN into the CND, the “Zairian KGB”, trained by Israel and the U.S., with exclusive testimonies about its dungeons in the 1970s.

The “Shadow Monster” as seen by his contemporaries.

Some Congolese writings describe him as “THE BLOODTHIRSTY TERMINATOR, VICTOR NENDAKA BIKA, THE SHADOW MONSTER,” for his role in “organizing the fatal transfer” of Lumumba. He maintained his innocence until his death, insisting the Lumumba Commission was “trying to frame him.”