In his mid-60s, and in the middle of the road to prison, the former Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz stands between the authority he left and the enormous money that began to come out of violence from its hideouts, according to what his opponents say, and how many of them these days are.

And after having remained for nearly two decades, filling the world and occupying people in the isthmus mankab (one of the names given to Mauritania); Ould Abdel Aziz overlooks a future that he fears will be painful after he first tasted the bitterness of solitary confinement. His first night in detention was in a cramped room without air conditioning.

The Mauritanian security apparatus confirmed in a statement issued by it that - unlike what was practiced by Ould Abdel Aziz during his power and power - it was keen to respect and provide the rights of the detainee to the former president, including allowing two members of his defense team to meet, in addition to his wife and daughter, and transfer him to an air-conditioned room.

This painful end was not what was expected by Ould Abdel Aziz, who has been in the depths of power since 2005, the date of the army’s overthrow of former President Maaouya Ould Taya. The 11th in which he ruled his country from mid-2008 to mid-2019, Ould Abdel Aziz remained the most powerful man of power, and the ruler who has no partner in his authority, before the winds of days came with what was not taken into account.

Ould Abdel Aziz is one of the most exciting Mauritanian rulers, and in the records of his 63-year-old age, multiple stops of walking in the shadows and in the glow of multiple crises.

Ould Abdel Aziz is known for his love for the desert and playing sports, but according to his opponents - and even some of his supporters - he does not have a sporting spirit, as his actions after his release from power show that he has not yet understood the status of a "former president."

Birth and identity controversy

According to official Mauritanian documents, the former president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, was born in Akjoujt, in the north of Mauritania, but various other statements common in his social surroundings say that he was born in the Kingdom of Morocco, and that he lived for a period of his life in the Senegalese beach city of "El Louga", where his father used to practice patterns Multiple trade and bears the title Haidara, which Senegalese give to the honorable Ahl al-Bayt.

That is why he remained accused by some of his opponents of being non-Mauritanian, and a few days ago, the Assistant Director of National Security and the former Director of Intelligence Muhammad Abdullah Ould Talib Abidi, nicknamed Ould Ade, wrote tweets in which he confirmed that there is not one of his parents buried in the country. His account on Twitter and caused a lot of confusion.

The childhood of the former president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, was neither flexible nor luxurious according to those familiar with it. Rather, it was quarrelsome, with many scars and wounds of childhood memories, especially since the teenager, Ould Abdel Aziz, did not enjoy a continuous regular education nor a great religious education.

Aziz lived part of his early life in Senegal, and mastered the common Senegalese dialect there, before his family moved to Nouakchott, and settled there, moving between the capital and some northern cities, inhabited by a group of his tribe with an original heritage in equestrian and trade.

In Senegal, Ould Abdel Aziz mastered the Wolffian language spoken by the Senegalese population, in addition to the Hassani dialect, especially in its version spoken by the West Bankers, which the Mauritanians call "Kalam Lebouka", which is a language that combines Sharia, wit and clarity in addition to the deduction of many vocabulary of the dialect Senegalese, ancient Berber and new French to the region.

Ould Abdel Aziz was associated with his cousin, the officer Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, who would later be the "Siwar Al Dahab" of Mauritania, and the young man coming from Senegal practiced some simple free work, before moving to the National Army, where he received extensive military training in the Kingdom of Morocco, and his level is unknown. My studies go beyond primary school.

Presidents' guard and jailer

Ould Abdel Aziz lived a long period of his career in the shadows before fate pushed him to the forefront of events.

After his return to Mauritania, Ould Abdel Aziz undertook several military missions in various regions of Mauritania before former President Muawiya Ould Taya chose him as his own military escort, then assigned him at a later stage the task of establishing and leading the Presidential Guard Brigade that represented the star of the Mauritanian weapon force, and it has transformed with time To a striking force that the former president relied on in overthrowing Ould Al-Taya, and later on by President Sayed Mohamed Ould Sheikh Abdullah.

In 2005, and in light of a deep political and security crisis, Ould Abdel Aziz, in cooperation with a number of his military comrades, including the current President Mohamed Ould Sheikh Al-Ghazwani, decided to get rid of Ould Taya, who at the time insisted on sending army leaders, including Ould Abdel Aziz, to the region. The border with northern Mali to confront Al-Qaeda, which shortly before that carried out a bloody operation against a garrison of the Mauritanian army.

In 2008, Ould Abdel Aziz decided to take power directly after a period of rule from behind a veil, and justified his military coup by saying, "The former president dismissed him at night, and he has no right to dismiss the officers at night." He wanted to express a legal defect in his decision to dismiss him, But the phrase betrayed him, and in the outburst of anger, he ended the Mauritanian democratic spring that the Mauritanian military had created and overthrown.

In conclusion, Ould Abdel Aziz has overthrown more than one president during the past years, starting with Ould Taya, ending with Sidi Mohamed Ould Sheikh Abdullah, and finally with a failed coup attempt - according to reports that have not been officially confirmed - against his friend Mohamed Ould Sheikh Al-Ghazwani.

Conflicts on multiple fronts

Ould Abdel Aziz came to power directly through a military coup on August 6, 2008, after he was dismissed by former President Sidi Ould Sheikh Abdallah, along with a number of army commanders, including the current president, Mohamed Ould Sheikh El-Ghazwani, when he became apprehensive of the movements of Ould Abdel Aziz opposing him and aiming to topple his regime.

Since that date, Ould Abdel Aziz became the strongman of Mauritania, and was able to reserve a large area of ​​the spotlight, despite the strong opposition he faced during the coup period.

Ould Abdel Aziz threw Sheikh Abdullah’s son in prison for several months, and his first minister (the prime minister) and a number of his senior aides were arrested, and he entered into multiple battles throughout his years of rule with the various shades of the political arena in his country.

Among the most prominent of those battles is his strong rivalry with his patron, the late President Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, which reached the point of threatening him with arrest more than once, and the friendship of Ould Abdel Aziz with his cousin, the famous businessman Mohamed Ould Bouamato, turned into an absolute hostility that ended with the displacement of Ould Bouamato for more than nine Years abroad, leading a painful media and political war against his ex-boyfriend.

Abdel Aziz was also born quickly with the friendship of the former opposition leader Ahmed Ould Daddah, who supported the coup of Ould Abdel Aziz before the relationship between them turned into flame and continuous conflict.

The Islamists also fought a period of simple rapprochement with Ould Abdel Aziz, before the coexistence between them turned into a bitter and painful conflict, which ended with the closure of most of the societies affiliated with them, and the assault on their spiritual leader Sheikh Muhammad al-Hassan bin Daddo, who closed Ould Abdel Aziz his scientific institutions, especially the Center for the Training of Scholars and the University Abdullah bin Yassin.

Poor head

Ould Abdel Aziz held a series of titles that remained mocked by the opposition and bloggers such as President of the Poor, President of Islamic Action, and Founding President.

During his early years in power, he gained wide popularity through slogans with which he entered the political scene, such as the war on corruption, strengthening the infrastructure, building roads, in addition to severing relations with Israel, and some other symbolic steps in the Islamic affairs, such as printing the Koran and opening a channel and radio For the Holy Quran.

However, these achievements, slogans and titles soon collapsed under the flame of corruption emanating from the surroundings of the president, and he turned from the president of the poor to the "chief of starvation" according to the accusations of the opposition. As for the head of the Islamic work, he ended up closing charitable societies and allying themselves with the most prominent international opponents of the Islamic movement. .

In the corruption circle

Ould Abdel Aziz is accused of pursuing a colossal corruption policy, which turned him and a number of his family members into the richest people in Mauritania. During the past weeks, the Mauritanian press has shown pictures of dozens of huge trucks and luxury cars that the former president and members of his family were said were keeping in private warehouses. Judicial freezing of massive assets and balances in the name of his family members and close associates in local banks.

Although Ould Abdel Aziz fought a bitter war against his political opponents under the banner of the war on corruption, imprisoned a number of businessmen and politicians, and deserted multiple groups of businessmen, he is now facing imprisonment under the same banner, and the evidence of his corruption is clear and moving, and the report of a parliamentary investigation committee formed Last January, I tracked down a number of the most prominent corruption files during the era of President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

Among the investigation files are how to manage the country's oil revenues, sell public properties in Nouakchott, liquidate a public institution that used to secure the country's food supplies, and the activities of a Chinese fishing company.

The parliamentary report concluded that the president and members of his family had seized many of the state’s property and wealth, and exploited their influence in passing deals that had damaged the economy of Mauritania, and accused them of seizing high-priced real estate in the capital, Nouakchott, including public schools and military and security headquarters after the state abandoned them in operations Auction sale was marred by a lot of violations, and many suspicions surrounded it.

The Mauritanian Parliament discussed the committee's report and referred it to the judiciary, so that the investigation began with Ould Abdel Aziz, members of his family and many ministers and officials who worked with him, amid a great welcome from the Mauritanian street and condemnation from some of the president’s close associates who spoke about the politicization of the file and the clear targeting of those who describe him as the builder of the modern Mauritania renaissance .

War of two friends

The history of the relationship between the current and former presidents of Mauritania spans more than 40 years, during which they shared formation, military collegiality, friendship, social relations, and political coups, but the relationship between them has been silently strained since the last year of the rule of President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, despite the insistence of the two parties to appear as a harmonious bilateral Throughout the presidential campaign.

Supporters of Ould Ghazwani accuse the former president of seizing huge sums from the budget of the current president's campaign, and Ould Abdel Aziz is also accused among large sectors of supporters of the authority of seeking to carry out a military coup against his friend during Independence Day celebrations 2019, but now the rope of corruption accusations is dramatically twisting On the neck of Ould Abdel Aziz, who is also accused in a "special security file", according to what was reported in the Mauritanian media.

Between August 2019 and August 2020, Ould Abdel Aziz transformed from a former president and leader who was appreciated and celebrated by his successor to a prisoner accused of a file list that could reach the level of high treason, and what is certain, according to his supporters and opponents, is that his pursuit of partnership in power and control over his successor was the first reason for all that He faces him today, otherwise he would have lived peacefully with his titles and what some say are his plunder.

The enemy of the poets who ruled the country of a million poets, the leader of the war on corruption who became the first and the largest of those accused of it, the head of the Islamic work who closed its institutions and institutions, and the leader of the poor who starved the country and the poorest people .. or something like that?

Among the contradictions

The man’s life is full of contradictions. Rather, his path was nothing more than a course and alternation between contradictions that would be difficult to meet. The leader of the war on corruption is accused of practicing the worst types of corruption and enrichment at the expense of the people, and the president of the poor leaves his country and the rate of poverty and unemployment has increased, and citizens have suffered from scarcity of resources and high prices And the leader of Islamic work has abused many charities and accused of besieging Islamic work and restricting its institutions.

During his reign, the poets 'goods were exhausted, and he showed more than once in his conferences and official statements about poetry and his family and downplayed them, and the artists' markets became the star of the artistic parties that were organized during the visits of the presidents and represented an opportunity for poets and artists to display their talents and obtain remunerative compensation.

It was one of the paradoxes of history that he was the opponent of the poets who ruled the country of a million poets.

The man’s attitude and his repeated exposure to poets in the country of a million poets aroused the ire of the companions of al-Qureid and organized in 2017 hanging in response to him, whose verses exceeded two hundred

The beginning came from the young poet Mohamed Ould Idumu, who composed a poem in which he said:

Sir .. the horizon of poetry is expanding

Your horizon is narrow, borderline, closed

Do not stand on a beach that you do not know

Dedan: the origin of al-Ishraq and al-Tunq

The poet Moulay Abdallah followed him with another poem, in which he said:

Deviate from the paths of poetry, son

There is nothing but ablution and drowning

And go where the money you collect

And where she guides you in collecting the paths

Then the poet Adi Ould Adab, the most famous poet in Mauritania, followed him with a poem in which he said:

Chinguetti .. the kingdom of beautiful poetry .. be sure!

The two Sultans - without poetry - were not created!

And we .. the princes of poetry .. our authority

It applies to the two authorities - above the ground!

And that all of the king's chairs are ... the most beautiful

Throne ... with the widest of the masses ... for us ... fall in love!

And that the most magnificent palaces of the land .. amazed

Let us make up the house of poetry .. We fabricate!

And that our wealth is poetry ... and our revolution

Poetry ... We are not ... give poetry ... We reap!

And we bestow the world with the beauty .. then

It is our thing .. and we steal it .. that we wish .. Trust!