I was reading up on the CAR, and specifically Bokassa, and it occured to me that Africa seemed to have more troubles after decolonization than other colonized areas (Southeast Asia and Central/South America). Was this the case? If so, why?
A couple of days ago I wrote an answer that covered some of the processes that were happening before colonialism in central Africa and how they affected the countries that would result post decolonization. This (and /u/gradstudent4ever follow up) might be of interest to you.
The two qualifying things that need to be said is that Africa is very large continent, each area has its own issues that it has had to confront. Colonial regiemes differed a lot in how they treated eachother not only between each other (France/Britain) but also within themselves (British Tropical Africa/Rhodesia). Similarly each region has its own environmental and local political issues that exist. The second thing is that populated areas of Africa were not "Blank Slates" prior to colonialism and Africa for the most part did not exist in a geo-political vacuum. If you'd like information on a particular state then please says so, otherwise I will give a general answer of areas that interest me in particular (and hopefully you).
The above answer might be able to give some insight into the pre-colonial pressures in place that had caused the destruction of a lot of states and unbalanced the political power in the region. In the answer I briefly talk about lateral resource distribution being an important part of the pre-colonial African state. A convincing argument that I have read is in Jean-Francois Bayart's The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly. Bayart argues that the majority of the states in Africa following decolonisation (and many today) relied upon a kind of neopatrimonialiam in order to maintain political structures. These (much like the lateral resource distribution of the past) were systems where the leader would distribute the states resources as political capital to district leaders (or members of parliament) to maintain loyalty. The district leader would then use this political capital to gain favor among his district. This consolidates both the state leader and the district leader's position.
Essentially what Bayert argues is that African politics is not that much different from politics elsewhere. Political capital is traded for loyalty much like in a Western Legislature/Executive. He tries to distance the idea that Africa is some sort of 'Great Other' where politics is 'savage'. However, of course on the flip side the resources of the country are being pooled into a very select group of peoples hands. Lots of people are left out of the process and it can be very hard to get into the system if you are from an outsider ethnic, religious or social group. Violence is often used against such groups should they rock the status quo. For example, in Zimbabwe we can see that such a system exists. When Mugabu and Zanu (who were ethnically majority Shona) won the 1980 election unrest happened in Matabeleland (the land of Northern Ndebele people). Mugabe responded with massacres in Matabele land.
Is this poor leadership? It depends on your definition. Often these leaders think they are looking after their people or their ethnic group. One could argue that they have been placed into a very difficult situation where their countries have been created purely for economic extraction towards the colonial mother country. As mentioned in my other answer the countries borders have been drawn up with little regard to previous states/ethnic groupings, a major issue when it comes to distribution of resources within the new state.
Africa is a big place, and not all countries fared the same. Not countries experienced colonialism in the same way.
Take French colonialism, for example. In some countries the French instituted a segregationalist structure. The Europeans ran the show and the indigenous were fully second class.
In other countries, such as Senegal, the local people were involved in their own governance, even attaining French citizenship and membership in It's governmental bodies.
Countries of the latter type were better suited for independence in the contemporary world.
Of course, this is only one example of many factors that influenced post-colonial success. It's out of my exact field, but this was a major theme of my undergraduate courses in African history.