Lihau attended the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium with the help of sympathetic Jesuit educators, becoming one of the first Congolese to study law.

He served briefly as a justice official and negotiator for the Congolese central government before being appointed to lead a commission to draft a permanent national constitution.

His health in decline, Lihau sought refuge from political persecution in the United States in 1985, accepting a job as a professor of constitutional law at Harvard University.

[2] After his secondary education at the Bolongo seminary,[1] he attended the Jesuit University Centre in Kisantu, graduating from the school's administrative sciences division.

One of Lihau's teachers, sociologist Willy De Craemer, resolved to help him enroll in the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, a school mostly unavailable to Congolese.

[5] Lihau served as president of the small Congolese-Ruanda-Urundi students' union in Belgium, Association Générale des Étudiants Congolais en Belgique[c] (AGEC).

As an invited speaker, Lihau encouraged Belgian clergy to join the side of Congolese activists and abandon what he referred to as an attitude of "clerical paternalism".

[4][11] On the eve of the Belgo-Congolese Round Table Conference in Brussels in January 1960, Lihau advised the Congolese political delegations to form a "Front Commun".

The second paper, entitled "The Internal Political Organisation of the Congo", compared the merits of Federalism and Unitarianism and proposed that the Congolese adopt one system or the other to ensure the future integrity of their country.

[8] In August Lihau met with a UN official in New York who encouraged him to disseminate support of a reconciliation between the central government and the authorities of the rebellious "State of Katanga".

[15] President Joseph Kasa-Vubu dismissed Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in September 1960 but the latter refused to leave his post, creating a political impasse.

A draft was completed by 11 April, but its presentation to the public was delayed as Kasa-Vubu's government and the commission debated over which faction held the prerogative to make revisions.

[33] In his inaugural speech, Lihau requested "the scrupulous respect of all the authorities of the Republic the status of the magistracy guaranteeing independence in the exercise of its functions.

[8] Mobutu was particularly disturbed by Lihau's membership in the party since, as a native of Équateur Province, he added to the geographic diversity of the organisation and therefore its political clout.

[41] In retaliation, Mobutu incarcerated him, suspended his rights, confiscated his personal property, and eventually banished him to the village of Yamake in Équateur Province.

[8][31] In August 1983, Lihau joined several of his colleagues in attempting to interrupt a meeting between government officials and United States Congressmen at the Hotel InterContinental in Kinshasa while wearing Western suits and ties (then banned by Mobutu).

A violent struggle between the UDPS members and Mobutu's security police ensued in full view of the American delegation and received a great amount of media attention in the United States.

[8] Meanwhile, in the Congo Mobutu persecuted the UDPS leadership, making it nearly impossible for Party President Étienne Tshisekedi to participate in political activities.

Lihau, who was at the time presiding over a meeting of exiled politicians in Brussels, demanded that before opposition elements returned to the country Mobutu's government guarantee the tolerance of a genuine multi-party system, agree to organise a round table conference for political reconciliation, and begin disbanding state security forces.

One soon convened, but Lihau protested the large number of delegates summoned by Mobutu to participate, accusing him of trying to stack the representation in his own favor.

[50] At one point during the conference, he denounced the perceived Baluba dominance of the UDPS and joined the Alliance des Bangala (ALIBA), a party with financial support from Mobutu that promoted politicians from Équateur.

[51] Eventually the constitutional commission produced a draft recommendation of a federal system that was intended to maintain the national integrity of the Congo while respecting its diversity.

[50] The conference disbanded in December 1992 having greatly reinvigorated democratic thought in the country but ultimately failing to enact significant institutional change.

[1] In June 1993, Lihau delivered a speech on television and radio, denouncing the Kasaian ethnic dominance of the UDPS and Tshisekedi's leadership.

Kasaians close to Tshisekedi were incensed by Lihau's comments and considered assassinating him and fixing blame on Mobutu and Prime Minister Faustin Birindwa.

However, notwithstanding these moments of weakness, he maintained his lucidity not to undermine the healthiness of the party for which he had sacrificed long years among the most active of his life.