15. The Central African Emperor
Africa has had no shortage of bloody-minded and bizarre rulers. For sheer delusion, however, it is difficult to top Jean-Bedel Bokassa (1921 – 1996), the military dictator of the Central African Republic from 1966 to 1979. He declared the small landlocked country an empire, and himself Bokassa I, Emperor of the Central African Empire. His years in power were marked by bloodthirst, murder, terror, corruption, and increasingly bizarre behavior.
Bokassa was a captain in the French colonial army when Central Africa gained its independence from France, and the country’s new president, a distant cousin, invited Bokassa to head its armed forces. He accepted, and a few years later, staged a coup and seized power, declaring himself president.