Dictator is defined by dictionary.com as "a person exercising absolute power, especially a ruler who has absolute, unrestricted control in a government without hereditary succession." There were many of these in Africa throughout it's history. This presentation will highlight one of them, Idi Amin.
This is Idi Amin, 3rd president of Uganda and in power from 1971-1979. He rose to power in 1971 after performing a successful military coup, an illegal seizure of power, in Uganda while the current prime minister and president, Milton Obote, was out of the country at a meeting in Singapore. During his reign of this poor country, he killed around 300,000 people, removed all of the Asians from Uganda (which led to their economic downfall), and he's become known as the "Butcher of Uganda" for his brutality towards his countrymen. He also insisted that his people called him "His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Dr Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE." He eventually finally fell from power in 1971 when he tried to attack Tanzania, but failed. He ran to Iran afterwards and later to Saudi Arabia, where he died on August 18, 2003 from a liver failure. He is now buried in Saudi Arabia after leaving an imprint on Uganda that will almost certainly never go away.
The real question is, how can we stop dictators from rising to power? The answer is, we can't be sure that dictators will never rise. There could even have a dictator in a well developed country, like the United States or the United Kingdom. There have been countless dictators over the course of humanity, it's just that some of them don't leave as much of an impact on their country as some of the more notable names, like Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, and Vlad the Impaler, did. All that a dictator needs to rise to power is an unstable government and riots in the country or a successful attack on the country to climb up to the highest position.
Works Cited
Biography.com Editors. “Idi Amin Biography.” The Biography.com Website, A&E Television Networks, 9 July 2014, www.biography.com/people/idi-amin-9183487. Accessed 14 Mar. 2017.
Ugandan President. Photographer. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/115_2245394/1/115_2245394/cite. Accessed 14 Mar 2017.