The Emperor Who Ate His People 1
📅 March 4, 2026
On New Year’s Eve of 1963 while the president, David Dacko, went about his business, completely unaware of the series of tragedy about to befall him, his close friend police chief Jean Izama received a call. It was from the commander-in-chief of the Central African army, Colonel Bokassa, asking him to come sign some documents.
Sign some documents?
Yes!
At this time?
Yes.
That can’t wait?
No!
Highly irritated but unsuspecting, the police chief left his new year eve celebrations, got into his wife’s car and drove into the night to sign said documents.
But there were no documents. Instead, there was Colonel Bokassa alright, another man called Alexandre Banza, and a few soldiers.
A coup was in motion, they told him quietly. Was he going to join or not?
Izama was struck, but this was no time to be struck. This was the time to answer a question.
No, he wasn’t going to join. Dacko was his friend. He could not betray him.
Alright then.
It was a nice gesture; a noble, loyal one, but a fatal one, nonetheless. Because first, they subdued and locked him up in a cellar. Then ten days later, had him transferred to Ngaragba, the most notorious prison in the country. He was dead by the end of the month.
But we move too fast.
Where was President Dacko?
I mentioned he was going about his business. Well, he didn’t go about it much longer when he heard about the coup. A coup? Really? How? That couldn’t be! He would go back to his villa, he thought. There, he would gather support, challenge the coup and take back power.
None of that bullshit thinking happened. On his way to the villa, he ran into members of the army who promptly bundled and dispatched him.
Within hours, the citizens of the Central African Republic woke up to a voice crackling through their radios:
Central Africans! Central Africans! Since 3.00 am this morning, your army has taken control of the government.
The Dacko government has resigned! The hour of justice is at hand! The bourgeoisie is abolished! The new era of equality amongst all has begun!
Central Africans, wherever you may be, be assured that the army will protect you and your property! Long live the Central African Republic!
It was Colonel Bokassa talking. The man whom, barely 11 months prior, had been humiliated by President Dacko in an official dinner.
Colonel Bokassa only wants to collect medals, Dacko had mocked. He is too stupid to pull off a coup d’etat!
_____
When Bokassa was 6, he witnessed his father die by the hands of the private militia of a French company. The men had accused him of insubordination. They hadn’t shot or hanged him. They beat him, literally, to death. Bokassa’s mother, shattered by the horror, committed suicide a week later.
Through the turbulence that was his life up to that point, a little miracle happened: school. He was faced with two options: becoming a soldier or becoming a priest.
He chose the first, the reason simple: the second came with too much responsibility, offering rewards of neither women nor wine, two things he knew he would come to love.
This soldier life had him travel extensively. From seeing action in Germany, to serving in France, then getting injured in Indochina, he listened and learned, all the while advancing through the ranks. It would take twenty years before he would see his hometown again. He would end up becoming a member of the military arm of government advising the president, David Dacko, on military matters, rising from battalion commandant to commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and finally, colonel.
But there was a problem. Bokassa.
See, Bokassa had always loved to be noticed. And for a man who loves attention as much as Bokassa, ambition backed by unsavory intent is never far. Which is why David Dacko considered it wise to appoint a man he trusted, Jean Izama, as police commissioner, and why instead of putting the army above the police (as expected), did the exact opposite by withholding funding for the army, pumping it into the police instead. He was also heard to have been discussing plans towards getting rid of Bokassa altogether.
Bokassa could either act or he could decide to get killed. For a man like Bokassa, the choice was simple, yet hard. Live, by launching a preemptive attack, or die, by failing at the attempt and still killed, or worse, jailed for life.
Well, December 31, 1963, happened and the man became president, making Dacko, instead, suffer the fate meant for him. Prison!
_____
1960 is fondly remembered as the Year of Africa. 17 countries gained their independence in that year alone. By the end of that decade, however, 41 military coups had been attempted, 25 of them successful. The reasons were simple. Greed and anger. The greed of those in power. The anger of those yearning to be in their place.
Like most of those who’d seized power, their reasons came under the guise of nationalism to gain popular support. Which is exactly what Jean-Bedel Bokassa did.
Nationalism! Protecting the republic from Chinese foreign interests! Dacko and his cronies had bled the national purse. What could Bokassa do? Throw them in Ngaragba, then install Banza as minister of finance (to rescue the economy), elevating him from captain to lieutenant-colonel. The civil service was corrupt and so were their officers. What could Bokassa do? Retire most of them, and the rest, sacked or banish (most notably the mayor of Bangui and his secretary general). Indolence was sin, and so was immorality. What could Bokassa do? Form the morality brigade and issue a decree ordering everyone between the ages of 18 to 55 to provide proof of a job lest they be fined, thrown in jail or both (sometimes, more).
Then came his polygamy ban, thrashing the act as an affront to the girl child. And then came the decree promising jail awaiting any parent attempting to interfere with the education of their girl children.
From religious to economic to social, Bokassa’s reforms were swift – and so did their death.
Like Amin and Mobutu, it didn’t take long before the uncontrollably lavish aspects of his thieving nature began to unravel.
First, though, he had to “take care of” certain people whom he deemed either threats or potential thorns in his flesh.
_____
You remember Alexandre Banza, the man with Bokassa on the night of the coup, yes?
Banza was the guy who had supplied Bokassa the needed morale to proceed with the coup when his heart had failed. Banza was the kind of no-nonsense guy who had very much wanted to shoot David Dacko through the head when the soldiers had brought him before him, bundled, pleading and broken. Banza was the guy who, as you know, had been promoted to manage the country’s finance. And Banza, smart and sharp as hell, had been doing his job, seeing to it that the nation was reviving, even to the extent of making his rash, hard lining views known at the Council of Ministers – a particularly dangerous thing to do, especially with Bokassa present.
Bokassa was one loud, intemperate idiot. Banza was the exact opposite. It wasn’t long before people began to sense an imminent clash.
First, Bokassa had him demoted from Minister of Finance to Health Minister. It was humiliating demotion. A couple of weeks later his portfolio was banished altogether. Banza wasn’t blind to the things that would likely follow, phony charges, prison time, execution. This was a dangerous, kill-or-be-killed situation. It didn’t take long before he began to plan a coup.
It never worked out. He was stupid enough to reveal the wrong people who betrayed and brought him straight to Bokassa who saw to it that he was soundly beaten, executed and buried on the spot he fell. But that wasn’t all. His father was thrown in prison, dying from starvation. Both of his brothers suffered a much more horrific fate and just… disappeared. His mother, mistress and children were sent on exile and after giving it a little thought, Bokassa took initiative and extra care to make sure his lineage was extinguished lest little ones be born and come after him.
Banza’s fate wasn’t rare. The closer in proximity you were to the president, the heavier your life hung in a balance. True, the privileges were massive, but Bokassa, prone to paranoia and hasty decisions and mortally afraid of being overthrown, could easily switch up and decide on a bad morning that you had the face or thumb of a traitor and had to be done away with.
It happened with Auguste M’bongo, minister of public works (who was thrown in Ngaragba for flaunting his privileges too much. He would later die there from brutal mistreatment). It happened with Martin Lingoupou, commander of the police force, whom Bokassa initially admired, but became jealous of and paranoid with, throwing him in Ngaragba and shortly after, making him disappear. It happened with Timothee Malendoma who controlled the diamond office but found himself kicked out. It happened with Captain Fidele Obrou, Bokassa’s son-in-law, who planned a ‘harmless’ coup with his twin brother, but was caught, savagely beat up, and executed a few yards from where Banza had met his end earlier.
There was no shortage to those it happened to.
These were threats. Roaches, he called them. And so, having taking care of these, he sat back and set about to feasting.
______
Now, if there was one thing Bokassa loved helplessly (after the desire to be recognized), it was beautiful women, goddamit!
If God did not like beautiful women, he would always say, he would not have created them.
Earlier on in his career whilst in Southeast Asia, he’d met a seventeen-year-old, smooth-faced lady, N’guyen Thi-Huè, He married her.
Then came the Belgian after the second world war whom he divorced.
Then there was Marguerite Green who died in an accident.
Then there was Jacqueline (who was Vietnamese, a nationality with women he found irresistible).
Then there was Astrid Elizabeth, seventeen years of age. Who would later divorce him, by the way.
It appeared the old goat loved the young and untouched, for fast-forward to a few years, he would lay eyes on a thirteen-year-old he would instantly lose his senses to and decide to wife. That girl was Catherine Denguiade, who would later become his empress and first lady.
And then there was Adrien “the Lebanese” Geddai, twenty years of age.
Once, while on an official visit to Gabon, he came upon a woman at the airport whom he swore was beautiful.
Tarry a while, he whispered to her, I shall be back!
It must have sounded like a joke. It wasn’t. Fifteen minutes after flying out, he instructed his pilot to return.
I was here on an official visit, he said to his deeply worried host, President Omar Bongo, after touching down. I now come back on a private visit to marry one of your citizens.
And marry, he did. That one was Joelle.
While on an official trip to Romania, the man Bokassa found himself entertained by a group of dancers, a blonde one in particular, Gabriella. He wasted no seconds making his intentions of bedding her known. She refused. She was married (she said).
Married to who? How? And so? Or did what Bokassa desire he didn’t have?
This desire, he made known to his hosts, the Romanians. A few weeks later she had become his. So great was his love for her that, despite his love for Catherine Denguiade, he went ahead to build this one a mansion complete with a swimming pool, a theatre and a private zoo.
But Bokassa was born wayward, and it didn’t take long before his infatuation began to ebb with her and flow with another. This new one was a Taiwanese named Chiang.
On an official trip to Mauritius, he acquired another whose name we do not know, and so vastly satisfied was he with his good fortune that he announced the opening of a new Central African Republic embassy in the country.
The schoolgirl, Marie-Reine, is worth mentioning here.
He had heard tales of her beauty and being Bokassa, immediately wanted her for himself. But so innocent was she that when he brought her to bed, she began to cry. What a total idiot! She would suffer for daring to defy him. He threw her in prison, threw her three brothers in prison, and after a bit of consideration, threw her mother in prison too. When, two-years-of-premium-shege-later, he called for her again, no one told her how to pull her pants and ride as instructed. Only then was her family released. And a villa bought for her.
Seventeen wives in all. Countless mistresses. To each of these, castles were built, villas were bought, and a few hundred children who had to be raised and schooled, mostly in France (it had to be France), were born. These took money, lots and loads of it – and the Central African Republic, a literal goldmine of diamonds, coffee and cotton, ruled by a man who had gotten rid of his roaches, knew that it was his and his alone to plunder.