The first Congolese to earn a doctoral degree in law from the University of Kinshasa, Tshisekedi is considered the most important leader in the central African nation after the iconic nationalist Patrice Lumumba. He was a very principled man; an incorruptible politician whose single interest was the wellbeing of the Congolese people.

Congolese people continue to pay a steep price in their resistance to a dictatorial regime backed by the US and its allies. The world takes little notice. Congo is an immensely rich nation, but it is among the poorest due to a history of political meddling and resource theft by Western powers. The time has come to stand in solidarity with Congolese people.

In the US there are already effective Trump boycotts seeking to delegitimise his political agenda. Internationally, protesters will be out wherever he goes. And from Africa, there are sound arguments to play a catalytic role, mainly because the most serious threat to humanity and environment is Trump’s climate change denialism.

In 2013 Mozambican government officials formed three private companies and took out illegal secret loans totaling $2 billion. Donors suspended credit to Mozambique because of the loans as the national currency fell by 70% in 2016. Restructuring the illegal loans means imposed austerity on a population already living in extreme austerity and eventually repaying the creditors from revenues derived from Mozambique’s natural gas deposits that on the market in 2023.

The South African student #FeesMustFall uprising at its peak has been largely single-issue driven – scrapping of tuition fees - rather than calling for systemic societal, political, social and economic change, and pushing for change of national leadership, as was the case in North Africa.