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Few remember that Muammar Gaddafi once dared to imagine an Africa unchained from foreign dictate. He did not merely oppose colonial legacies in speech. He acted by investing Libya’s oil wealth into free healthcare, free education, and a satellite that reclaimed Africa’s voice in the sky.
He ran Libya without external debt. He proposed a gold-backed continental currency to promote free trade between neighbours. He poured state oil revenues into homes for the poor and farming programmes in Mali, Niger and Chad. These were not half-baked ideas. They were concrete steps toward genuine African self-reliance.
Yet Western media painted him as a tyrant. They feared his proposals, not his brutality. An independent Africa with its financial architecture and its own communications satellites threatened established power. So his billions vanished. His vision was buried under a spin of “rogue state” headlines.
Today, we still borrow with strings attached. We still pay others to beam our phone calls. We still allocate vast aid budgets while our experts beg for visas to work on home turf. Gaddafi’s dream of an African Development Bank, free from IMF traps, was never merely Libya’s ambition; it was Africa's.
It is time to reclaim that dream. We need memory of bold ideas, not just bitter memories of conflict. We need unity that transcends borders drawn by empires. We need courage to propose solutions that benefit millions, not just foreign shareholders.
If you believe in an Africa that stands tall on its resources and intellect, share this piece. Comment below with your vision for African unity, and visit rocketparrot.com for more insights on our continent’s untold stories.
