The cabinet on Monday voted for the creation of Lumumbaville in the late nationalist’s home area.

The cabinet in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday, May 13, 2013 renamed a village after Patrice Lumumba, the country’s independence Prime Minister who was assassinated in 1961, a few months after publicly accusing former colonial master, Belgium of interfering in his country’s affairs.

The UN’s Radio Okapi reported yesterday, May 14, 2013 that Lumumbaville will cover the Wembo-Nyama village and Ewango community in Katako-Kombe, East Kasaï Province in the centre of the country from where the late nationalist hailed. More than 50 years after the killing of Patrice Lumumba on January 17, 1961, his family continues to ask for the culprits to be brought to book.

A Belgian court last December decided to investigate the assassination after a parliamentary commission had in 2001 concluded that the Belgian government at the time was morally responsible for the crime. Following the report, the government officially apologised to DRC. But in a recent twist of events, Lord David Lea, writing last month in the ‘London Review of Books,’ alleged that Daphné Park, a former MI6 agent told him in 2010 that she organised the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. 

As the country’s first Prime Minister, Lumumba held office only from June 23 to September 13, 1960 before he was forced out of power, following a political crisis. He was assassinated a short time later. Patrice Hemery Lumumba was born on July 2, 1925 in the village of Onalua in Kasai Province. He was a member of the small Batetela ethnic group.

In October 1958 he, along with other Congolese leaders, launched the Congolese National Movement, MNC, the first nationwide Congolese political party. After attending the first All-African People’s Conference in Accra, Ghana in December 1958 where he met nationalists from across the continent, his outlook and vocabulary took on the tenor of militant nationalism.