"Libya's Gaddafi was never about African unity, and pan-Africanism. He was about Gaddafi." Professor Lumumba.

 @ PROF. PLO Lumumba & Africa

Gaddafi Was Never About African Unity — He Was About Gaddafi

The myth of Muammar Gaddafi as a great Pan-African unifier needs to die. He was not a visionary trying to liberate the continent. He was a classic power monger — a dictator who stayed in power in Libya for 42 years by crushing all opposition, and then tried to export that same model of dominance to the rest of Africa.

Look at the pattern. Everything he called "unity" was always centered on himself as the leader.

When he pushed for the United States of Africa, it wasn't a democratic union of equals. It was a project where he demanded to be named the first president, the king of kings. He literally had hundreds of African traditional leaders crown him "King of Kings of Africa" in 2008 after paying them off. That is not Pan-Africanism. That is personal empire-building.

His so-called generosity was a tool of control. The billions he poured into the African Union, into buying votes, into funding rebel groups and governments — that money wasn't charity. It was leverage. He bought loyalty. He funded coups and counter-coups across Chad, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan to destabilize governments that wouldn't bow to Tripoli. A true unifier builds institutions. Gaddafi bought dependence.

At home, he proved he had no interest in empowering people. He dismantled every institution in Libya, banned political parties, banned a free press, jailed and killed dissidents, and left the country with no constitution and no succession plan. A man who refuses to share power with his own people for four decades is not suddenly going to share power with an entire continent.

His dream of an African gold dinar and a single army was not about freeing Africa from the West. It was about making Africa dependent on Libya's oil wealth and Libya's military. He wanted to replace French and American neo-colonialism with Libyan neo-colonialism — with himself at the top.

Gaddafi didn't want a united Africa. He wanted an Africa that he ruled. His Pan-Africanism was just a bigger stage for the same dictatorship he ran in Tripoli: one man, absolute power, no questions asked.’

Once again you have hit the nail on the head.  

Disempowering the ordinary people and dismantling the democratic institutions is a favourite tool of many dictators. In Zimbabwe Mugabe and now Mnangagwa has undermined the country’s state institutions by appointing Zanu PF loyalists. 

In the rural areas the two have stubbornly refused to grant rural povo title deeds to even one acre of land on which their mud huts stand. This is a carry over policy of the white colonial regimes. 

In 1975 the renowned Economist and Banker, John Robertson, advised Ian Smith, the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, that giving the blacks in the rural areas title deeds to even one acre of land would give value to the land and motivate the blacks to build decent homes and take good care of the land. This made economic sense, there was no denying.

Ian Smith said no because he feared an economically empowered black will be demanding political empowerment next. He was not ready to give the blacks the vote. 

John Robertson gave Mugabe, Prime Minister of independent Zimbabwe, the same proposal - give rural blacks title deed to an acre or two of land. Mugabe too said no and for the same selfish political reason that economic empowerment would take away Zanu PF’s economic dependency leverage over the masses. 

Mnangagwa has ruthless imposed this policy by demolishing decent homestead and commercial properties in rural areas under the pretext the owners do not have title deeds. He and his Zanu PF ruling elite have title deeds to the former white owned farms hundreds of thousands of acres each; seized from the owners in the chaotic and violent 2000 to 2010 land redistribution.  

The ruling elite did not pay a penny for these seized farms. And now they have title deeds, they are subdividing the farms and selling them off for a fortune!

So it is ok for Mnangagwa & co. to own 100 000 plus acre farms and the same buffoons have insolence to deny povo ownership of just 1 acre of land on which their mud hut stand. Just 1 acre! 

The right to own property is a universal human right. The right to own land meant more to the ordinary Zimbabwean than “One man, one vote!” Millions risked, livelihoods, limbs and over 300 000 lost their very lives in the fight for land and human dignity. It is heartbreaking that 46 years after independence millions of Zimbabweans are having to fight for the same rights and dignity!

For the record, Mugabe considered himself a Pan-Africanist and many believed him! When Muammar Gaddafi was killed, Mugabe considered himself the heir apparent and was disappointed was never crowned Africa’s king of kings!