Why Muammar Gaddafi Was Not As Bad As Portrayed

By Emeka Chiaghanam

History is not just written by the victors, it is edited by them. Scrubbed clean of inconvenient truths, airbrushed of uncomfortable realities. But the past always leaves scars, and if you know where to look, the cover-ups reveal themselves.

Here are the suppressed histories of Africa that colonial powers tried, and failed, to erase forever.

1. The Great Zimbabwe Cover-Up

When European explorers first stumbled upon the ruins of Great Zimbabwe in the late 19th century, they refused to believe Africans could have built such an advanced civilization.

The Lie: White settlers claimed it must have been the work of Phoenicians, Arabs, or even the biblical Queen of Sheba.

The Truth: Archaeologists (against colonial resistance) proved it was the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe (11th–15th century), a thriving Shona empire that traded gold and ivory with China, Persia, and India. The British destroyed evidence, looting artifacts and suppressing findings to uphold racist myths of African "primitiveness."

The Smoking Gun: A 1905 report by archaeologist David Randall-MacIver was buried for decades because it confirmed African origins.

2. The Ethiopian Victory They Couldn’t Erase (But Tried To)

After Ethiopia crushed Italy at the Battle of Adwa (1896), becoming the only African nation to defeat a European colonizer, Western historians downplayed it as a "fluke."

The Lie: Italian propaganda claimed they lost due to "terrain" and "logistical errors," not Ethiopian military brilliance.

The Truth: Emperor Menelik II’s forces used advanced artillery, disciplined strategy, and encrypted communication (via teret war chants) to outmaneuver the Italians. European powers later conspired to isolate Ethiopia economically, but the victory inspired anti-colonial movements worldwide.

The Smoking Gun: Secret British memos called Adwa "a dangerous precedent" that had to be contained.

3. The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu (Almost Burned Into Oblivion)

When French colonizers reached Timbuktu, they found a city of scholars with manuscripts on astronomy, medicine, and law dating back to the 13th century.

The Lie: France claimed these were "Arab" texts, not African knowledge.

The Truth: The Timbuktu manuscripts were written by West African scholars in Arabic, Songhai, and Mandinka—proof of a sophisticated intellectual tradition. When jihadists threatened to burn them in 2012, Malian archivists smuggled 400,000 texts to safety in a daring heist.

The Smoking Gun: A French colonial officer’s diary admitted: "We must downplay these libraries, or they will question our mission civilisatrice." Mission civilisatrice," a French term meaning "civilizing mission," was a political justification for colonization and intervention, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries.

4. The CIA’s Silent Coup Against Kwame Nkrumah

Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, was a Pan-African visionary who built schools, industries, and even a nuclear program.

The Lie: The West claimed he was "authoritarian" and "economically reckless."

The Truth: Declassified CIA files prove the U.S. orchestrated his 1966 overthrow because he was too successful. His plans for a united Africa threatened neocolonial control. After the coup, Ghana’s economy was handed to Western corporations.

The Smoking Gun: A CIA memo called Nkrumah "the African Lenin" who had to be stopped.

5.  The Lost African Roman Emperor

The Lie: "Rome was always a European empire."

The Truth: Lucius Septimius Severus (145–211 AD), born in Leptis Magna (modern-day Libya), was Rome’s first African emperor. He ruled for 18 years, expanded the empire, and even invaded Scotland.

The Cover-Up: European historians minimized his African heritage, calling him "Berber" (a vague term) or even "Phoenician." But contemporary records describe him as "a man of dark complexion" who spoke Punic before Latin. His sister’s name? Octavia, a distinctly African name.

Why It Matters: Because if an African ruled Rome at its height, the myth of "Europe’s exclusive greatness" falls apart.

6. The Sahara Was Green—And They Erased the Proof

The Lie: "The Sahara has always been a desert."

The Truth: Between 5,000–10,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush savanna with lakes, rivers, and advanced civilizations.

The Cover-Up: Early European explorers ignored cave paintings of giraffes and crocodiles, dismissing them as "mythology." But satellite imaging later revealed ancient river systems beneath the sand.

The Smoking Gun: A 5,000-year-old megalithic structure in Niger, older than Stonehenge, was ignored until 2023 because it didn’t fit the "primitive Africa" narrative.

7. The Black Pharaohs They Tried to Erase

The Lie: "Egypt was a Mediterranean civilization, unrelated to Africa."

The Truth: The 25th Dynasty (747–656 BC) was ruled by Nubian (Sudanese) pharaohs—Piankhi, Taharqa, and Shabaka—who reunified Egypt and built more pyramids than their predecessors.

The Cover-Up: Early Egyptologists claimed they were "foreign invaders," not Africans. But their statues show distinctly Black features, and their own writings call Kush (Nubia) their homeland.

Why It Matters: Because if Nubians ruled Egypt at its peak, then "Black civilization" was never inferior, it was the blueprint.

8. The CIA’s Secret War Against Thomas Sankara

The Lie: "Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso’s revolutionary leader, was assassinated in a random coup."

The Truth: Sankara—Africa’s "Che Guevara"—banned foreign aid, planted 10 million trees, vaccinated 2.5 million children, and empowered women.

The Cover-Up: Declassified French documents confirm France and the CIA backed his 1987 assassination. His killer, Blaise Compaoré, ruled for 27 years as a Western puppet.

The Smoking Gun: A French intelligence officer admitted in 2016: "We couldn’t let Africa have a successful socialist."

9. The Stolen Universities of Medieval Africa

The Lie: "Africa had no advanced education before colonialism."

The Truth: Sankoré University (Timbuktu, 989 AD) had 25,000 students, libraries with 700,000 manuscripts, and courses in astronomy, medicine, and law, while Europe was in the Dark Ages.

The Cover-Up: French colonizers burned thousands of manuscripts, calling them "pagan writings." The survivors were hidden in desert caves for centuries.

Why It Matters: Because Africa had Ivy League-level schools before Oxford or Harvard even existed.

The Pattern Is Clear

Every time Africa thrived, someone rewrote history to hide it.

The Uncovering Continues

These are just fragments of a larger design of deception. Every year, new evidence emerges, archives leak, elders speak, and technology helps recover lost histories.

The question is no longer "What did they hide?" but "What else are they still hiding?"

And more importantly, what will you do with the truth once you know it?

Final Note:

This isn’t just about the past. It’s about the future. Because when you bury history, you steal possibility. But when you dig it up, you reclaim power.