For decades, African countries paid Europe roughly $500 million annually simply to lease satellite capacity for phone calls, television broadcasts, and internet access often even for communications within Africa itself. Calls involving the continent were among the most expensive in the world, with the money flowing directly to European providers.
In 1992, 45 African nations established RASCOM to create their own satellite and break free from this arrangement. They approached the World Bank, IMF, United States, and Europe for funding, but for fourteen years they received only vague promises and no real support. The reason was clear: the major powers had little interest in helping Africa stop paying them $500 million every year.
Gaddafi stepped in and ended the delay. He contributed $300 million from Libya, with the African Development Bank adding $50 million and the West African Development Bank providing $27 million. On December 26, 2007, Africa launched its first communications satellite, finally cutting the $500 million yearly payment to Europe.
He then set his sights even higher. As African Union chairman in 2009, Gaddafi advocated for a gold-backed pan-African currency the gold dinar to liberate African trade from the US dollar and offer countries stuck in France’s CFA franc system a genuine alternative.
Libya held around 143 tonnes of gold to support this initiative. He had also provided the bulk of the funding needed to establish three institutions aimed at replacing the IMF’s influence on the continent: an African Central Bank, an African Monetary Fund, and an African Investment Bank. The goal was for Africa to finance its own development.
In 2011, NATO bombed Libya, and Gaddafi was killed by rebels. Many Africans believe the push for an independent currency was the true reason for his downfall, citing leaked Hillary Clinton emails that referenced his gold reserves and pan-African plans. While this specific motive has never been conclusively proven and relies on a single adviser’s memo, the sequence of events is striking.
A leader who amassed gold to free Africa from the dollar and the CFA franc saw his country destroyed by the world’s most powerful militaries, leaving behind a failed state and open-air slave markets where a functioning nation once stood.
Everyone you see in this video is dead.
This group led by one Gift Okpara a.k.a 2BABA captured a Police Officer, beheaded him and took his body away.
The Story Of SP Bako Angbashim. The Officer That Moved Around Barefooted.
There was a Police officer who refused to hide behind his rank.
His name was SP Bako Angbashim, the DPO of Ahoada Division in Rivers State.
While many officers would drive into communities with armed escorts, Angbashim often walked through villages on foot. Residents said they always saw him barefoot as he chased criminals through difficult terrain. He believed that fear belonged to criminals, not the Police.
He took the fight directly to kidnappers, cultists and armed gangs that had turned Ahoada into their kingdom.
Then came September 8, 2023.
While leading an operation to rescue kidnapped victims and dismantle a criminal camp, he and his team were ambushed.
He fought.
He did not run.
The criminals overpowered him, murdered him, beheaded him and took away his body.
For months, his family had no grave to visit.
For months, Nigeria searched.
Nearly six months later, security forces stormed the hideout of the gang responsible. Inside their forest camp, investigators made a horrifying discovery.
His remains had been buried in a shallow grave inside the criminals’ shrine.
His skull was recovered and later identified through forensic examination before his remains were finally returned to his family for a proper burial.
Imagine dedicating your life to protecting strangers, only to meet such a brutal end.
SP Bako Angbashim did not die because he was weak.
He died because he chose duty over comfort, courage over fear, and service over self preservation.
Whether you like the Police or not, stories like his remind us that there are officers who put everything on the line so ordinary Nigerians can sleep at night.
May his courage never be forgotten.
May his sacrifice never be in vain.
Rest in peace, SP Bako Angbashim.
@renoomokri I don't even have the time to waste reading anything from you, X should just block your account make we rest, you two faced human being, as long as it favours you, you will support it forgetting everything you ever stood for.
Meet Sergeant Kvitochok — a cat with an iron character and soft paws. He loves staying close to the soldiers and keeping everything under control.
Hunting mice is a separate part in his “official duties,” and he receives a “reward” for each one. That’s exactly how Kvitochok built his “military career” and earned the callsign Sergeant.
📷: 127th Heavy Mechanized Brigade
When Alexander the Great’s beloved companion Hephaestion died, Alexander threw him a lavish funeral worth around $200,000,000. He also had a 60m high pyre commissioned, with 7 layers of golden objects. Hephaestion was also worshipped as a divine hero. Shrines were erected in his memory.
Hephaestion’s death in 324 BC, was one of the greatest personal blows to Alexander the Great. The two had been inseparable since childhood, often compared to the legendary pair Achilles and Patroclus. When Hephaestion suddenly fell ill and died in Ecbatana (modern-day Iran), Alexander was devastated. Ancient sources describe him mourning intensely, cutting his hair in grief, and refusing food for days.
The funeral was extraordinary even by royal standards. Ancient historians estimated the cost at 10,000 talents of silver, equivalent to hundreds of millions in modern terms. A massive pyre, reportedly 60 meters high, was constructed with multiple tiers decorated with gold, sculptures, and military trophies. Alexander also ordered cities across his empire to honor Hephaestion as a divine hero, blurring the lines between man and god.
This event foreshadowed Alexander’s own death less than a year later, when plans were underway to dedicate Hephaestion’s cult more broadly. The funeral shows not only the depth of Alexander’s grief but also the immense resources he commanded at the height of his empire.
Some scholars argue that the scale of Hephaestion’s funeral was second only to Alexander’s own, reflecting how central their bond was to the mythology of his reign.
📷 : Roman marble busts, believed to be of Alexander the Great and his closest friend, Hephaestion.
(Altes Museum)
#archaeohistories