Moktar Ould Daddah

Who is Moktar Ould Daddah?

Moktar Ould Daddah was born on 25 December 1924 in Boutilimit, into a scholarly marabout family, and was educated first in Quranic schools before pursuing higher studies in France, where he became one of the first Mauritanians to earn a university law degree. Returning home in the late 1950s, he entered politics through the Mauritanian Progressive Union before founding the Mauritanian Regroupment Party, and he negotiated the country's peaceful transition to independence from France, becoming Prime Minister in 1957 and the first President of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania upon full independence in 1960. He led the young nation for eighteen years, formalizing a one-party state under a new constitution in 1964, pursuing a program he described as "Islamic socialism," and serving as chairman of the Organization of African Unity in 1971. His decision to send troops into the Western Sahara conflict after 1975 strained the country economically and militarily, contributing to the military coup that deposed him on 10 July 1978. After a period of imprisonment he went into exile in France in 1979, returned to Mauritania in 2001, and died in Paris on 14 October 2003, just days before the publication of his memoir.

Sources: Britannica, "Moktar Ould Daddah" (biography entry) · BlackPast.org, "Moktar Ould Daddah (1924-2003)" · Ould Daddah, Moktar. La Mauritanie contre vents et marées (Éditions Karthala, 2003)