Moktar Ould Daddah
By:Samar Ibrahim

Moktar Ould Daddah is a French West Africa statesman who was independent Mauritania’s first president (1961-78).
He was noted for his progress in unifying his biracial (Moor and Negro), dispersed, and partly nomadic people under his authoritarian but enlightened rule.

Of aristocratic background, Ould Daddah received his secondary education in a Saint Louis school in 1941.

From 1942 to 1948, he worked as a freelance translator. In 1951 he was the first Mauritanian to graduate from a university and to become a lawyer. When he returned from Paris in the mid-1950s, he joined the more moderate of two rival parties the Progressive Mauritanian Union (PMU). Ould Daddah used PMU as a platform for struggle against the French, who, since 1920, had ruled his country from Senegal.

In the early 1950s, Paris's policy on French West Africa radically changed. The colonies became French overseas territories. In 1957, Nouakchott was established as Mauritania's capital. A Territorial Assembly was set up to which Ould Daddah was elected.

By 1958 he was president of the Executive Council and the natural choice for prime minister in 1959. In 1960 the National Assembly (Parliament) was created. The first presidential elections were held after Constitution was promulgated.

Ould Daddah became the first President of independent Mauritania in 1961. Meanwhile, in 1958 he had established a new unity party, the Mauritanian Regrouping Party (MRP).

Moktar Ould Daddah's first aim was national unity, a delicate problem in a country divided between a minority agricultural south and a largely nomadic Moorish center and north.

At first he tried to balance regional notables and impatient young modernizers in a basically parliamentary regime; but in 1964 he shifted to an authoritarian one-party system (Mauritanian People’s Party, of which he was secretary-general). After independence, Mauritania was without any basic services.

Ould Daddah introduced electricity networks, fresh potable water, a new roads network. In 1974 he nationalized the Miforma Company which had exploited the copper and lead mines. A national currency (ouguiya) was created in 1972.

On the cultural front, Ould Daddah worked to preserve his country’s cultural Arab-Islamic identity. The early stages of basic education were thus Arabised and a law passed making Arabic Mauritania's official language.

Education services were improved and Nouakchott University was established. Notwithstanding the above, divisions amongst Mauritanians still persisted. Ould Daddah's achievements on the international arena were many and impressive. He used his diplomacy to serve both Arab and African issues. He dedicated a great part of his efforts to achieving African unity.

He was elected President of the 1971 African Heads-of-State Summit. In that year also Mauritania was handed over the rotating presidency of the Organization of African Unity [to 1972] during which time he exerted his utmost to achieve freedom, equality and justice throughout the continent. Ould Daddah further worked to promote Arab causes and Arab solidarity. After the 1967 Israeli aggression on Egypt, Syria and Jordan he severed diplomatic links with Great Britain and the United States of America.

In July 1978 dissatisfaction with the costly attempt by Mauritania to annex part of former Spanish Sahara resulted in his ouster by a military coup d'état led by Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Ould Salek. Ould Daddah was placed under house arrest, but was freed in August 1979 and allowed to travel to France. In October 1980, he was convicted in absentia for treason and for constitution violations and was sentenced to hard labour life imprisonment.

In July 2001, Ould Daddah returned home to a warm greeting by hundreds of supporters after 23 years in exile.