Paul Panda Farnana

Paul Panda Farnana was born in Zemba-lez-Moanda in the Bas-Congo Province of the Congo Free State in 1888. He was the son of Luizi Fernando, a government-appointed chief. A Belgian official, Lieutenant Derscheid, offered to bring Farnana to Belgium to receive an education. He accepted, and they arrived in Brussels on 25 April 1900. Upon Dersheid's death, Farnana was adopted by the lieutenant's widow, Louise. He attended secondary school at Athénée Royal d'Ixelles. In 1904 he passed an entrance exam and was enrolled in a horticultural and agricultural school in Vilvoorde, graduating three years later with distinction. In 1908 Farfana studied at an institute for tropical agriculture in Nogent-sur-Marne, Paris, France. That same year he studied English in Mons. He was the first Congolese to receive a diploma of higher education in Belgium.

In 1909 Farfana was hired as an agricultural specialist by the Belgian colonial government, which by then running the former Congo Free State as the Belgian Congo. In June he was assigned to the Botanic Garden of Eala, near Coquilhatville (now Mbandaka).

Shortly before the outbreak of World War I Farfana was living in Belgium. When Belgium was invaded in 1914, Farfana volunteered in the Belgian Army. He served in the disastrous siege of Namur (August 1914) and was taken prisoner, spending the rest of the war as a German prisoner of war. Afterwards, he founded an association known as the Union Congolaise to advocate for the interests of other Congolese veterans.

Farfana participated in the first and second Pan-African Congresses in 1919 and 1921, respectively. He also attended the First National Belgian Colonial Congress in 1920. He actively criticized Belgian colonial practices, arguing that the ban on forced labour in the Congo was not being consistently applied and education for the native population was inadequate. He also called for the Congolese to be granted political rights.

In 1929 Farfana went to Matadi to manage an oil mill. He died there nine months later.

Farfana is considered by historians to be the first Congolese intellectual. Following his death, Belgium forbade any further Congolese from studying in Belgium.

Farnana's work was largely forgotten by the public until Congolese historians began uncovering details about his life in the 1970s and 1980s. A Belgian documentary was made about him in 2008.