The rise to power and brutal assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the newly founded independent republic Congo. The ex-mail clerk, beer salesman and gifted spellbinder firmly believed in the capacity of his homeland to build a prosperous nation independent of its former Belgium overlords. Since the mid-1950ies Lumumba was politically active and a founding member the „Mouvement National Congolais (MNC).
However, Lumumba's desire to bring a peaceful and orderly transfer of power soon earns him enemies of all political stripes. Militant advocates for freedom demand that white Belgian officers of the nation's military be replaced with African soldiers at once, while Belgian colonists are met with violence, sparking a revolt by the white settlers that leads to a bloody civil war. Eventually Lumumba finds himself trapped between commercial and political interests in Belgium, the United States, the international community, and his own administration. After only two month as prime minister he is arrested, imprisond, tortured and executed under dubious cirsumstances. His body chopped in to pieces and dissolved in acid.