Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (born Joseph-Desiré Mobutu; October 14, 1930 – 7 September 1997) is the President of Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville), which Mobutu renames Zaire in 1971, from 1965 to 1997.

Installed and supported in office primarily by Belgium and the United States, he forms an authoritarian regime, amasses vast personal wealth, and attempts to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence while enjoying considerable support by the United States due to his anti-communist stance.

During the Congo Crisis, Belgian and US-backed forces aid Mobutu in a coup against the nationalist government of Patrice Lumumba in 1960 to take control of the government.

Lumumba is the first leader in the country to be democratically elected and is killed by a Katangese firing squad; Mobutu soon becomes the army chief of staff.

In a second coup (1965), he assumes the office of Prime Minister in 1966 and then establishes a presidential form of government headed by himself in 1967.

As part of his program of “national authenticity”, Mobutu changes the Congo's name to Zaïre in 1971 and his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko in 1972.

Power is concentrated in Mobutu, who establishes a single-party state and a cult of personality.During his reign, Mobutu builds a highly centralized state and amasses a large personal fortune through economic exploitation and corruption, leading some to call his rule “kleptocracy”.

The nation suffers from uncontrolled inflation, a large debt, and massive currency devaluations.

By 1991, economic deterioration and unrest lead him to agree to share power with opposition leaders, but he uses the army to thwart change until May 1997, when rebel forces led by Laurent Kabila expel him from the country.

Already suffering from prostate cancer, he dies three months later in Morocco.

Mobutu Sese Seko is notorious for corruption, nepotism, and the embezzlement of billions of US dollars that takes place during his reign, as well as extravagances such as Concorde-flown shopping trips to Paris.

Mobutu presides over the country for nearly four decades, a period of widespread human rights violations.

As such, he has been described as the "archetypal African dictator".