He began his professional career in 1954 under the Belgian Congo as a commis territorial, which at the time corresponded to a minister today.
[citation needed] On 8 March 1960, a provincial executive college was created in Coquilhatville (Équateur Province) composed of Laurent Eketebi, Sebastien Ikolo and Leon Engulu.
[3] Engulu participated in the Belgo-Congolese Round Table Conference in Brussels in 1960 as a member of the executive college and vice-president of the UNIMO party, which he founded in January 1960 with Justin Bomboko and Eugène Ndjoku.
Laurent Eketebi of PUNA, son of Mongo and Ngombe parents, was acceptable to voters from those two large ethnic groups.
The other governors were Paul Muhona, Kasaï-Oriental; Vital Moanda, Kivu; François Lwakabwanga, Bandundu; Jonas Mukamba, Equateur; Léon Engulu, Kasai-Occidental; Denis Paluku, Congo Central and Honoré Takizala, Orientale Province.
In 1974, he also became a member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Movement of the Revolution (Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution, MPR) where in a famous speech, he compared Mobutu to Jesus Christ, qualifying him as the Black Messiah.
In 1985–1988, he lived for a time in Montreal, Canada, where he obtained a Master's degree in political science, with a focus on Public Administration.
Engulu returned to politics at the end of 2003 as a senator in the Transitional Parliament after joining Jean-Pierre Bemba's MLC.
[14] He attributed the multiplicity of political parties to the chronic misery of the rural tribes and clans and the appalling unemployment rates in the cities.