SABOTAGING THE POWER OF SULTAN MAKENGA
According to reports from African intelligence,M23 Continues the fighting against the FARDC Democratic Republic of Congo's armed forces and their auxiliaries continues in the remote parts of North Kivu province, where the Ebola outbreak is spreading and where the AFC-M23 retains its military and political grip. Over recent weeks, however, serious internal tensions have surfaced within the rebel movement. Its command has kept them secret, keen as it is not to undermine the image of unity it seeks to project.
Growing dissent is weakening M23 governance and plans to challenge its military leader, Sultani Makenga, emerged in early September. Makenga's tight hold over the movement's political wing, led by Corneille Nangaa, whose room for manoeuvre remains limited, as does his budget for carrying out his programme, may have sparked ambitions among those seeking to assert themselves.
A project that had been taking shape since the start of 2026 was recently uncovered and thwarted by the movement's senior leadership, which moved quickly while trying to contain the seeds of a leadership crisis. In late August, Makenga and his loyalists quietly arranged for the arrest in Goma of one of the political wing's advisers, Théo Binamungu.
An organisation chart in the making
After being questioned and having his smartphones and computers analysed, Binamungu was interviewed by the military intelligence services of the M23's ARC armed branch before being transferred to the cells of another M23 service, the DSR intelligence department.
Since 8 September, Binamungu has been held at Munzenze central prison in Goma. A nephew of the late former North Kivu governor Léonard Kanyamuhanga, who served under Laurent-Désiré Kabila's AFDL and later the RCD-Goma, Binamungu had taken part in the AFDL-led rebellion.
More recently, in the Congolese capital, he headed the office of Chérubin Okende – found dead in his car in Kinshasa in July 2023, his body riddled with bullets –, before joining M23 in a personal capacity after the capture of Goma in late January 2025. With political experience and a degree of influence in Kigali, he became one of Corneille Nangaa's advisers, while also being reappointed in April as provincial co-ordinator for Moïse Katumbi's party, Ensemble pour la République.
The "conspiracy", as described anonymously by some M23 army and intelligence officials, centres on Binamungu and his associates' alleged ambition to impose themselves on the "Makenga clan" and carve up certain strategic political and military posts. The plan is said to have been hatched in strict secrecy over recent months before being presented to members of Rwanda's security apparatus.
According to documents and messages extracted from Binamungu's devices, an action plan and an organisational chart were in the final stages of preparation. They envisaged that "brigadier general" Baudouin Ngaruye Wa Myamuro would replace Makenga as his current commander. Makenga's distrust of the officer, a long-standing ally who he appointed as commander of the AFC-M23's first defence zone, had led him to confront him in the past.
A "plot" involving civilians and soldiers
That was in 2013. At the time, M23 controlled Goma, and the fighters loyal to these two rebel leaders – both targeted by United Nations, US and European Union sanctions – clashed militarily amid disagreements over political strategy. Close to former rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda (sentenced to 30 years in prison by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity), Ngaruye Wa Myamuro was a central figure in the movement's split. Among other things, he favoured the strategy of broadening demands nationwide advocated at the time by the M23's political leader, evangelical pastor Jean-Marie Runiga.
Nearly 15 years later, the mystic and strategist's name has resurfaced among those suspected of sedition against Makenga's system. According to data extracted from suspects' devices and confessions from individuals familiar with the plan, the seized organisational chart showed Runiga becoming governor of South Kivu.
Binamungu had planned to take up that role in North Kivu, replacing the current AFC-M23 governor, Joseph Musanga Bahati, known as "Erasto", a military man who had already served in the rebellion in the days of dissident general Laurent Nkunda. The politician and provincial official from Moïse Katumbi's party struggled to work with this battle-hardened fighter, close to Makenga, to the point of triggering the beginnings of a simmering leadership war.
Officer François Kazarama, jailed in 2025 by M23 leadership over the killing of a civilian (AI, 01/10/25), also moved around this internal destabilisation plan before disclosing some of its details and documents. Several political figures and military personnel are said to have been implicated, including "lieutenant-colonel" Seraphin Mirindi, a close associate of "colonel" Richard Kayonde Bisamaza, with whom he lived in exile in Uganda before joining the rebel ranks.
The risk of manipulation by Kinshasa
Also under scrutiny is "colonel" Josué Biyoyo Karhanga, a former "G1" (in charge of general administration at headquarters), suspected of working to mobilise and recruit elements within the troops. He was briefly reported missing in March after being contacted by the intelligence chief (G2), John Imani Nzenze. In fact, the M23's master spy handled Kazarama, who would have replaced him if the plan had succeeded, as an infiltrated agent among the mutineers. Nzenze is steering the ongoing investigation, going so far as to conduct the interrogations personally.
This highly sensitive matter is being handled with extreme caution by Makenga, his intelligence chief and his inner circle. For now, arrests are being carried out sparingly and in a highly targeted manner, limited to the few people thought to have been behind the "plot". Officers are being interrogated in the strictest secrecy, with some jailed or placed under heavy surveillance. Suspected senior figures are being "dealt with", but not yet arrested, in order to avoid destabilising the ranks.
Nevertheless, a real fault line remains within the movement. It pits the political wing, led by Nangaa who is more vulnerable and threatened than ever, against Makenga's military command. These fault lines have spread beyond the traditional mistrust between civilians and soldiers: some members of each camp are now quick to form opportunistic alliances. For the M23 high command, this internal war carries a major risk: that Kinshasa will exploit these rivalries to further its own ends. Within headquarters, the troops and the political leadership, tensions have never been higher.
REPORTS BY OUR INTELLIGENCE APPARATUS INDICATE A RUMOURED PLAN TO DISSOLVE THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION OF M23
According to our Several OSINT and HUMINT collections ,within the circles close to the M23 protray that, in the near future, the M23/AFC will metamorphose, Corneille Nangaa will give way to the new head of the Rebellion, war veteran Joseph Kabila Kabange, to face the Belgian braggart Félix Tshilombo and his Brussels gang.
They continue to say that the former President Joseph Kabila will always do everything to put an end to a Kasai nightmare that has now lasted 8 years.
Comments from one of the prominent figures in the inner M23 circle went as:
"Joseph Kabila is the leader who is the strong one, the embodiment of energy who takes reality into his hands to impose a military and political direction on the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It should be known that power changes profoundly the one who exercises it. the reason is in the necessities of command, which are inflexible. According to the art of governing, it is to not let men grow old in their positions. That is why Tshilombo must step down, and he must step down very quickly"
