/
RSS Feed
Jeamie “TKV” Tshikeva dreams of returning to DR Congo as the British heavyweight champion — stepping off the plane with a title belt over his shoulder to show the country of his parents and grandparents what one of their own has achieved.
In a nation once known as Zaire — where 60,000 fans packed into Kinshasa for Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman’s iconic Rumble in the Jungle — such a homecoming would carry deep significance.
“It would be a big statement,” the Tottenham-born fighter said. “Maybe I could go there and do a Rumble in the Jungle 2.”
But Tshikeva’s connection to Congo is not just a sentimental return to his roots. It is tied to a family history marked by soldiers, coups and repeated attempts on his relatives’ lives — a story that drove his family into exile and reads more like a political thriller than a genealogy.
“Maybe eight, 10 years ago it probably wasn’t safe to return,” he says. “But things have changed now.”
The press sat down with the 32-year-old and his father, Makasi, to unpick a family saga shaped by power struggles and survival.
A grandfather targeted by Mobutu
The story begins with Jeamie’s grandfather, Andre-Bruno Tshikeva, a senior figure in the Zairean army in the 1950s under Belgian rule.
“In France and Belgium, people study my grandad,” Jeamie says.
According to the family, Andre-Bruno trained in Belgium and even served as a bodyguard to King Baudouin. After Congo gained independence in 1960, he returned home as a respected army lieutenant.
Five years later, he played a role in helping Mobutu Sese Seko seize power in a military coup. But in Mobutu’s Zaire, influence was dangerous. When four former cabinet ministers were publicly executed in the 1966 “Pentecost Plot,” Mobutu began to view Andre-Bruno as a potential threat.
He was reassigned to Kolwezi, a remote but strategic city — a move his son Makasi believes was a setup.
“My dad had no idea, but Mobutu organised it. It was all set up to kill him,” Makasi says.
Soon after Andre-Bruno arrived, rebels swept through the area. He fought his way out and fled in a Jeep, confused as to why his own men had turned on him.
Back in Kinshasa, he was accused of enabling violence and killing civilians. Arrested and condemned, he was imprisoned — and survived multiple attempts on his life, including alleged poisoning by one of his own wives.
After six years, he was released on compassionate grounds, but the damage was done.
“You could smell toxins every time he went to the toilet,” Makasi recalls.
“After two years, with all the poison in his body, my dad died.”
‘I joined the army to avenge my dad’
Makasi was 18 when he made a vow.
“I joined the army to avenge my dad’s death,” he says. “My plan was to train hard, rise through the ranks and become Mobutu’s bodyguard. Then, when I got close enough, I could shoot him.”
But his ambition never stood a chance — the Tshikeva name was too well-known.
“They had a plot to kill me, just like they did to my dad,” he says.
Still, he rose quickly, eventually becoming a commando instructor for elite units. Yet attempts on his life continued. Once, a chef warned him that a meal had been poisoned. Another time, during a training exercise, a rope was allegedly tampered with to send him plunging 80 feet — a friend warned him just in time.
With a new wife and young son, Makasi fled Zaire. In 1991, he arrived in Tottenham.
“It’s funny how history repeats itself,” Jeamie reflects.
“My dad literally went through the same thing as my grandad. He just got lucky to get away.”
