We are all familiar with names like Ted Bundy, Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, and other men who have done evil and killed a lot of people. However, there are other men in Africa who might have done worse than the ones that we know.
In this article, we will take a look at the Most Evil Men In Africa’s History. These people committed many atrocities against the human race and have been considered some of the evilest people Africa has ever seen.
1. Idi Amin Dada
Also known as the Butcher of Uganda, Kijambiya, or Black Hitler, Idi Amin Dada Oumee was a Ugandan dictator and warlord who served as the country’s third president. Due to the fact that he did not authorize the writing of an official account of his life, his date of birth is not known. However, he was said to have been born between 1923 to 1928.
He overthrew the Ugandan president, Milton Obote via a military coup in 1971, while he was attending a commonwealth summit in Singapore. During his reign as president of Uganda, Idi Amin earned the nickname “Butcher of Uganda” due to his brutality. It is believed that no fewer than 300,000 people including political rivals, farmers, religious leaders, and even children, lost their lives at the time.
Additionally, this Ugandan president was accused of cannibalism. It was said that he kept the bodies of his victims in a refrigerator, from which he feasted. Similarly, he had an underground prison with a torture chamber where he ousted his victims.
This Ugandan president woke up one morning and decided he didn’t want any Asians in his country anymore, so he gave them an ultimatum of 90 days to leave the country or face his wrath. Out of fear, these Asians left everything they had, which his men then took.
Idi Amin was also known for his mood swings, he killed a lot of people, especially employees. It was said that one of his employees found out about his death on the radio after his principal had decided to kill him.
Even his wives were not exempted from his killing spree. He killed his fourth wife one year after their divorce for being disloyal to him. She was mutilated while he was four months pregnant with another man’s child.
As president, his official title was
“His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshall, Alhaji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular”
Idi Amin had 6 wives and over 40 children. he was ousted in 1978, and he fled to Saudi Arabia, where he died of multiple organ failures in 2003.
2. Jean-Bedel Bokassa
Born on 22 February 1921, this evil African leader was nicknamed “the butcher of Bangui”. He became the president of the Central African Republic on January 1, 1966. His regime was supported by the French military and economic aid.
Bokassa declared himself president for life in 1972 and began to kill anyone who opposed him. This African leader went on to declare his country an Empire and renamed it as Central African Empire. His office became the office of the Emperor and himself, Emperor Bokassa I.
His rein in CAR was characterized by brutality. He ordered that all schoolchildren purchase uniforms that were only made by the factory his wife owned. This led to protests by the schoolchildren, and in return, Bokassa ordered the arrest, imprisonment, and killing of the protesters. Over 100 children were killed.
This evil leader was also a cannibal who ate the bodies of victims of his brutality. Bodies were discovered in his freezers shortly after he was overthrown as Emperor. Some of the bodies including that of children were disemboweled and mutilated.
Bokassa ordered that thieves should lose an ear after the first two offenses, and a har for the third. He also supervised the torture of his victims and fed them to lions and crocodiles
He was overthrown in 1979 and went into exile in France. Subsequently, in the 1980s his children were arrested for shoplifting food. The overthrown president returned to the Central African Republic in 1986 where he was tried and convicted of murder, cannibalism, assault, and treason, among other crimes. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in solitary confinement. His sentence was then reduced to 20 years, from which he was pardoned in 1993. Bokassa died at the age of 75, from a heart attack in 1996.
3. Jean Kambanda
The Rwandan genocide is infamous for the deaths of over 800,000 people, but what many do not know is who took responsibility for these deaths. Jean Kambanda is the only Rwandan leader to plead guilty for the massacre that lasted between April to July 1994.
He was born on October 19, 1955, in Huye, Rwanda. Jean became the Prime minister of Rwanda in 1994 and it was during his tenure that the infamous Rwandan genocide occurred.
The Rwandan prime minister was arrested and charged to the International Criminal Tribunal, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide, agreement to commit genocide, incitement to genocide, aiding and abetting genocide, failing to prevent genocide, and two counts of crimes against humanity.
In an appeal, he said though he confessed to being responsible, he was not guilty, and his confession was an error due to poor counsel. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998
4. Muammar Ghaddafi
This Libyan revolutionary, politician, and former president was born in 1942. He ruled Libya between 1969 to 2011. During this time, the Libyan economy blossomed. He demanded that the oil companies in Libya pay a bigger share of the revenue to the country. Gadaffi is famous for having female bodyguards.
Despite the increase, he brought to this country, he was a brutal leader, which earned him the nickname “Mad Dog of the Middle East”. He was accused of being the brain behind the bombing of the West Berlin dance clubs that killed a lot of people.
The former Libyan leader was also accused of sex crimes. It was said that he raped hundreds of teenagers in sex dungeons that were built specifically for that purpose. These sex dungeons were equipped with medical gadgets for examination for sexually transmitted diseases.
He was charged with two counts of crimes against humanity but was terminated in November 2011, after he was shot and killed by a rebel group.
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5. Charles Taylor
Taylor was born in a small town near Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, on January 28, 1948. He became the president of Liberia in 1997, until his resignation in 2003.
He became one of the most powerful warlords in Africa’s history after the first Liberian civil war. Subsequently, he was in charge of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, a revolting group that killed more than 200,000 Liberians.
Charles Taylor was accused of aiding the Revolutionary United Front with weapon sales in exchange for blood diamonds, which led to the death of over 50,000 people. Other crimes committed by this African leader included murder, mutilation, rape, and the conscription of children into the army.
Due to a lot of pressure from the international community, Charles Taylor was sentenced to 50 years in prison for different crimes, including war crimes, he committed while he was president.
6. Ahmed Sekou Toure
This African leader was born on January 9, 1922, in French Guinea. He became the first president of the independent republic of Guinea in October 1958, after serving in many unions in the country.
His tenure was characterized by human rights oppression and brutality. The fear of his wrath led a lot of indigenes of the country to flee for fear of being arrested and kept in prison camps. He executed anyone who dared oppose his government.
In 1958, he ordered the execution of 58 people for their involvement in an unsuccessful coup against his government. Toure died in March 1984, in Cleveland while undergoing treatment for cardiac issues.
7. Francisco Macias Nguema
Born on January 1, 1924, Francisco Nguema is considered one of the most brutal and evil dictators in Africa’s history. He came to office as the president of Equatorial Guinea in 1968. Nguema was the first president of the country following its independence.
He consolidated power by establishing an extreme cult system. He held anti-European speeches and killed whoever he perceived was against him, including his cabinet members and senior officials.
Nguema once ordered the killing of 186 suspected dissidents in a national stadium, while playing Mary Hopkins’ song, Those were the days. 150 of them were shot and hanged, while the remaining 36 were made to dig their graves, buried up to their necks, and eaten alive by red ants.
Nguema was rumored to have had a mental illness which was partly responsible for his action. Additionally, he was said to be an abuser of drugs and other illicit substances.
This evil leader once ordered the killing of an entire village, because of one person he thought was opposing his government. Male prisoners were beaten to death with wooden clubs, while females were subjected to sexual abuse, sometimes, in the presence of their husbands.
Nguema was executed by hired firing squad in September 1979, after his nephew Teodoro Nguema came to power via a coup. The Equatoguinean soldiers refused to shoot him after he promised that his ghost would come back and take revenge on those who killed him.
8. Joseph Rao Kony
It seems as though Uganda has had its share of evil leaders in the past. This Ugandan leader is one of the evilest men in history. He was born in 1961 and rose to become the founder and leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a religious group that has been designated a terrorist group by the United Nations Peacekeepers and the European Union among other international organizations.
Through his organization, Kony has been involved with the conscription of minors into the army and has been responsible for the deaths of over 100,00 and the abduction of at least 60,000 children. Other crimes committed by this evil man include sexual abuse and other crimes against humanity. He is also responsible for the displacement of over 2 million people.
Kony describes himself as a freedom fighter, fighting for the Christian faith in Uganda, but his actions seem far from it. He is currently one of the most wanted African militants and one of the most notorious warlords. He is said to have up to 60 wives and 42 children.
9. Joshua Miltton Blahyi
This African warlord is also called “General Butt Naked”. He was famous for going into battle naked wearing nothing except shoes and magic charms. But what was the logic behind that? it was revealed that at the age of 11, he was initiated as a high priest after being handed over to the elders at the age of 7.
Blahyi believed that going to battle naked made him immune to bullets. During wars, the warlord and his troops perpetrated all kinds of atrocities, including cannibalism and human sacrifices.
He claimed that he received a vision from the devil who told him he would become a great warrior and that by committing these atrocities, his powers would increase. General Butt Naked revealed that sometimes he would enter the water where children were playing, grab one and break his/her neck, other times he would cause accidents or just slaughter them, just in a bid to be more powerful. He would kill children, pluck out the heart, and eat it.
In 1996, Blahyi claimed he saw Jesus Christ who asked him to stop being a slave. With that, he converted to Christianity and became a preacher of the gospel. He confessed to the murders of at least 20,000 people after his conversion, at the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
10. Bosco Ntaganda
This Rwandan warlord and the criminal was a former military chief of staff. He was born on November 5, 1973. He joined the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, the military wing of the Union of Congolese Patriots, where he became its chief of military operations.
Ntaganda was involved in countless massacres, conscripting minors into the military, and other crimes against humanity Ntaganda told the underaged soldiers
When you’re a solider, you get a woman for free. Everything is free.
In 2006, he was charged with war crimes of enlisting children below the age of 15 and using them to participate in hostilities between 2002 and 2003. A warrant for his arrest was issued. However, the court ruled that circumstances had changed and unsealed the warrant.
In March, the Rwandan warlord handed himself to the US embassy in Rwanda and requested that his case should be transferred to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. He pleaded not guilty to the 18-count charge leveled against him including rape, murder, and sexual slavery.
Subsequently, he was convicted of all crimes and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment in 2019. The longest prison sentence by the ICC. It was also ruled that his victims should be compensated with $ 30 million, the highest amount ever awarded.
