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Form er coup-maker and curren Chadian President Idriss Deby has a penchant for authoritarian rule, and when his country's oil starts oozing to market today, observers say he will finally have the cash to match his regional ambitions.

"Idriss Deby is setting himself up as the boss of central Africa.

He already had the military power, and with the oil he's now got the economic power," a high-ranking official from one of the six Central African Monetary and Economic Community (Cemac) countries said in the Gabonese capital recently.

"A new state of diplomatic affairs is shaping up and that means political tension in the region," he continued.

Oil from the Doba basin in southern Chad is expected to flow for 25 years, and is hoped to provide annual revenues of $80-million, increasing government revenues by half, according to the World Bank.

These revenues are theoretically watched over by a commission of government, legislative and civil society representatives.

But it is thought that few of the landlocked desert country's population of 10-million, where per capita income is well under a dollar a day, will see any of the benefits of the newfound oil wealth.

Things are also looking up in neighbouring Central Afican Republic (CAR), which after years of acrimony between N'Djamena and the previous pro-Libyan regime, is now run by a Chadian ally, General Francois Bozize.

The CAR has in recent months become something of a testing ground for Deby's ambitions.

Long-suspected of supporting Bozize's initially unpromising rebellion, in February Deby launched a diplomatic broadside at his then opposite number in Bangui, Ange-Felix Patasse, saying "There is a regime problem".

Less than a month later, and against all expectations, Bozize entered Bangui triumphant on March 15.

When looters subsequently ran riot in the capital, Bozize called N'Djamena for help.

Several hundred well-trained and equipped Chadian troops arrived on the scene with surprising rapidity, and reestablished order.

Observers in Chad have noted that high-ranking Central African exiles returning from France after Bozize's coup thanked Deby for his intervention before returning home. Previously they would have had Libreville to thank.

Gabon had previously "looked after" the CAR for France since French troops withdrew in 1997, according to a Libreville-based diplomat.

Ever since Bozize came to power, Deby's people are everywhere in the CAR: at the presidential palace, in the army, in the intelligence services and in business.

Their omnipresence has even irked locals, who hitherto lived harmoniously with a large Chadian community.

But changes in the region rarely happen overnight.

With an army estimated at 30 000 men by the International Insitutue of Strategic Studies, Chad was already the region's major military power.

Thirty years of civil war have only sharpened the traditional warrior qualities of some ethnic groups in Chad that contribute greatly to the strengths of the army.

And while Deby may have traded in his military uniform for civilian dress, he remains a soldier at heart.

Despite 13 years in power and two presidential elections, the Chadian regime "remains a military power in many respects,” according to a diplomat.

The authorities' continued use of arbitrary detention and torture has been criticised by human rights organisation Amnesty International. - Sapa-AFP.

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