Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi was born near Qasr Abu Hadi on June 7, 1942, in Qasr Abu Hadi, Libya, a rural area outside the town of Sirte in western Libya. Gaddafi was the only son of his parents and the youngest of four siblings. His family came from a small, relatively uninfluential tribe called the Qadhadhfa,] who were Arab in heritage. His mother was named Aisha bin Niran and his father, Mohammad Abdul Salam.
From childhood, Gaddafi was aware of the involvement of European colonial powers in Libya; his nation was occupied by Italy, and during the North African Campaign of the Second World War, it witnessed conflict between Italian and British forces. Gaddafi’s paternal grandfather, Abdessalam Bouminyar, was killed by the Italian Army during the Italian invasion of 1911. Gaddafi’s earliest education was of a religious nature, imparted by a local Islamic teacher. Subsequently, he moved nearby Sirte to attend elementary school, and he progressed through six grades in four years. Education in Libya was not free, but his father thought it would greatly benefit his son despite the financial strain.
During the week Gaddafi slept in a mosque, and only at weekends and holidays he walked 20 miles (32 km) to visit his parents. Even though Gaddafi’s father was not educated, he made great sacrifices to send his son to school. he faced bullying and discrimination from his city-dwelling classmates because he was of the lower class. Gaddafi briefly studied history at the University of Libya in Benghazi before dropping out to join the military. Despite his police record, in 1963 he began training at the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi, alongside several like-minded friends from Misrata.
Col Muammar Ghaddafi seized power in Libya and captured power in 1969 in a swift military coup. Gaddafi’s main contribution to Africa since 1999, was when he turned away from the Arab League and the Middle East to try to form the United States of Africa, to promote this idea of a borderless Africa, presumably led by him. In July 1999, Gaddafi took the stage at the annual summit of the Organization of African Unity in Algiers. He announced that it was time for Africa to unite and proclaimed the need to review the 1963 OAU charter and amend it. For this purpose, he invited Africa’s leaders to a summit he would host in the Libyan city of Sirte.
On the 9th of September 1999, at the summit in Sirte, Gaddafi presented his vision of a borderless United States of Africa. He envisioned that the continent would be ruled by one government under a single president and that it would have a united defense force and one foreign and trade policy. To realize this, he called for the establishment of an African Union. At Sirte, Gaddafi laid the foundation for the transition of the Organization of African Unity into the African Union.
He promised to establish new organs within the African Union, including a Peace and Security Council, a Pan-African Parliament, and an Economic, Social, and Cultural Council Gaddafi’s proposal for establishing an African Union manifested in 2002, with the organization’s inauguration in South Africa To realize his vision of a united Africa, Gaddafi donated millions of dollars o to the AU’s operating budget.
Gaddafi also paid the AU share of several poorer African nations in order to win votes for the idea of a United States of Africa. His generosity proved insufficient, however, as Gaddafi’s influence in the AU and support for his vision began to dwindle soon after the organization’s inception. Whereas Gaddafi’s initiatives to revive African cooperation were widely appreciated, his plans for the United States of Africa never found the resounding support they needed among African leaders, who often paid lip service to his vision but did not commit to realizing it.
Gaddafi never gave up on his idea of a United States of Africa. As the years passed, he even seemed to grow more erratic in his grandiose visions. In 2008, for example, he crowned himself “king of kings of Africa” in front of 200 traditional African rulers.
Gaddafi was rewarded for his contributions to the African Union in 2009 when he was elected chairman of the organization. His chairmanship was marked by repeated arguments between Gaddafi and other African leaders, and he failed to garner sufficient support for a second term.
Unfortunately, Col Gaddafi died in 2011 without seeing his dream come to reality, he was eliminated through an Assassination on October 20, 2011, in, Sirte, Libya, HE was eliminated after protests in Libya that happened in the wake of the Arab Spring, many Africans believe Gaddafi was targeted because of his Pan African ideals which would have formed a formidable African continent.
Col Gaddafi’s contributions to Africa make him one of the most celebrated modern Pan-Africanists of this generation.
Next episode (the life, and achievements of Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso and Africa)
Kamukama Rukundo Clinton is a Ugandan political analyst, book author, and contributing news editor for 1cananews who can be contacted via rukundopeter33@gmail.com and +256704393540
