I rather continue the topic of the Central African Empire here. But this starts at these >>42720 >>42736 posts.

Just yanked a couple of books from libgen about the Central African Republic, and frankly those Wiki articles mentioned above don't give justice to poor Emperor Bokassa I.
Ofc as a monarch he seems bonkers but his time as dauphin, when he controlled the country as lowly President from 1966 to 1976 he actually made an effort to keep a certain direction and the country a bit above the level of shit.
In 1966 he gained power via a bloodless coup (later he made his personal counselor the ex-president, Dacko, he ousted, as previously discussed in relation to the Mali coup, these countries has very few people who are actually usable to anything, it's a good thing not to waste a relative talent), then he tried to lead the country on a path with the promise of some independence from France, the previous colonial leash-holder. He entered his country into the Economic Community of Central African States, took a Marxist orientation and had cooperative agreements with the USSR and Romania, also sought relations with other African nationalist, anti-colonialist, and Marxist states, like Equatorial Guinea and Libya. Besides he maintained some level of relations with western powers, France and the US, the latter sent foreign aid up until his coronation, and France even after that, tho they stopped direct help to him (butnot the country).
From the '70s Muslim businessmen saw an opportunity in the CAR, this and maybe the visit of Gaddafi made him turning towards Islam. Ah, and ofc the fact that during the Cold War many Muslim countries got in friendly terms with the Soviet Union. He gave monopoly of diamond mining to some Central African Arab mining consortium (if I understood right) too.
There were a couple of reasons that hindered the taking of the first shaky independent baby steps. For one he alienated the French, and many businessmen of theirs, along with various experts left the country. I think at one time he threw them out. Then global commodity prices dropped, I think due to the 1973–1975 recession, it would worth a look see of the impact of this to the African economies. Anyway CAR relies on diamond export by large, today and back then, then cotton as cash crop. They have some coffee, kola, and cocoa too. There is at least one more reason the lack of success, and that's typical to third world countries, the mismanagement of the budget, pocketing the wealth.