Joseph Lutula

Joseph Lutula was born on 6 October 1927[1] in the village of Usumba-Wembo-Nyama, Katako-Kombe Territory, Belgian Congo to a Tetela family.[2] He was schooled by Methodists alongside Patrice Lumumba. In 1947 he moved to Stanleyville and stayed with Lumumba and Paul Kimbulu.[3] Lutula worked as a clerk in the colonial administration.[4] He served as the secretary of a Protestant Tetela association in Léopoldville. Later, several Tetela syndicates conglomerated into the Groupement Batetela and Lutula was chosen as its secretary.[5] Lutula joined the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), and after the party split he aligned himself with Lumumba's faction, serving on the central committee.[6] In March 1960 Okito participated in the Akutshu-Anamongo Congress of Lodja, serving as one of the conference's secretaries.[7] The participants resolved to create an Association des Akutshu-Anamongo to assist the MNC in the upcoming general elections in Kasai Province, and Lutula was given control of its permanent secretariat.[8]

Lutula ran on an MNC-Lumumba ticket in the May elections in the Sankuru District. He received 11,917 preferential votes and won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies.[9] He was appointed by Prime Minister Lumumba to serve as Minister of Agriculture in his government of the newly independent Republic of the Congo.[10] Lutula and Lumumba were its only members to come from Sankuru.[11] The government was officially invested by Parliament on 24 June 1960.[12] He was dismissed by President Joseph Kasa-Vubu on 12 September.[1] After Lumumba was killed in Katanga in early February 1961, he accompanied Lumumba's widow, Pauline Opango, as she led a demonstration to the United Nations office in Léopoldville to ask for assistance in recovering his body.[13] Following the execution of numerous Lumumba supporters in Bakwanga over the course of the month, Lutula fled Léopoldville and joined Antoine Gizenga's government in Stanleyville as Minister of Agriculture.[1][14] After a national political reconciliation in August, Lutula resumed his position in the central government under Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula.[14] On 17 April 1963 Adoula reshuffled his cabinet and made him Minister of Middle Classes and Community Development.[15] He resigned in September.[16]

In the 1970s Lutula moved to Kisangani (formerly Stanleyville), but in the late 1980s he returned to Kinshasa (formerly Léopoldville).[3] He died at 20:00 on 17 March 2008 at the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital in Kinshasa following cardiac issues.[17]