Happy black history Month.

January 1st 1969, Marien Ngouabi was sworn in as the President of Republic of Congo.

But who was he? And why was he assassinated 8 years later after refusing to grant the French the oil region of Cabinda

#Thread

1.French occupied Congo Brazzaville starting early 19th century. Every European colonial power wanted a piece of the Congo so the French commissioned Pierre de Brazza to explore Equatorial Africa in October 1875.

By 1891, French had already annexed Congo Brazza

2. Like any French Colony, Congolese endured ruthless exploitation of their land for 80 years

By 1958, Congo Brazaville was on a journey to decolonization under MSA ( movement socialist African) founded by anti-colonial leaders from Tchad, Senegal, Gabon, Cameroon, Mali,..

3. On August 5th 1960,French agreed on a peaceful transition to an independent state and give Fulbert Youlou to govern the new republic.

Youlou, a liberal nationalist was seen as less of a threat compared to other anti-colonial leaders

4. Youlou's presidency was a total failure full of corruption, incompetency and catering to French multinationals for validation

This ended very bad for Youlou because when the people started strikes all over the country, France did nothing when the military overthrew Youlou