Today marks a red-letter day in the annals of Gaddafi's Libya, a day the Iroko was felled down.
Today marks a red-letter day in the annals of Gaddafi's Libya, a day the Iroko was felled down.
He was a demi-god for 42 years and his high-handed reign was never challenged until about eight months ago when Libyans realized that their destiny and/or freedom had long hung in the balance waiting for someone to champion it. Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Al-Gaddafi was often described as a raving, mad man but he managed to sanely hold his country sway for more than four decades, casting himself with the image of a deliverer who alone could bring the dreams of his people to reality. His people bought into and were fascinated or rather charmed by his persona which he often oiled by his occasional material gifts to his multitude of loyalists and sycophants who were ignorantly subservient to his psychopathic whims and caprices.
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He regularly flashed currency notes at the poor to make them believe he was concerned about their physical well-being and he consistently carved for himself the image of a war-lord who was invincible, and his kingdom, impregnable to foreign invaders. Libyans lived in awe and fear of him and no one dared to question his autocratic authority for forty-two good years. He used Libya's oil and gas resources to build a family empire for himself although his loyalists argue he grew Libya's economy to such a sustainable level that the average Libyan had employment opportunity and was never bothered about where the next meal would come from. Under Gaddafi, Libya became a haven flowing with milk and honey for seekers of greener pasture.
Many people from other poor African countries thronged Libya in search of their African version of the popular "American Dream," some of them found it while a greater percentage were trapped in a nest of human rights abuse that characterized Gaddafi's regime leading them to spend their hay days in deplorable prison facilities and others humiliated and deported. When his merger dream with Egypt and Syria failed, Gaddafi dug up his long held idea of a "United States of Africa" when he was privileged to chair the African Union. Had this ridiculous dream materialized, the self-acclaimed King of kings would have become the patriarch of an ill-conceived United States of Africa.
Now that Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Al-Gaddafi has been made to bite the dust, what is left of the National Transitional Council (NTC) is to move fast to disarm the youth of Libya and make sure the hitherto unregulated ownership and use of weapons is brought under control. There is the tendency of Libya being swallowed in an unprecedented wave of insurgency in the manner of Iraq if the dreams of those youth who sacrificed a lot to bring Libya to the light of freedom are not urgently realized. With little monetary enticement, these youth can be deadly weapons in the hands of rogue nations like Iran or terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda who will seek to benefit from a destabilized Libya. Under Gaddafi, Libya was a no-go area for terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda.
With the rumor that Al-Qaeda elements infiltrated the rebels in the early days of the struggle, it is pertinent to state here that unless the NTC moves fast to institutionalize and strengthen the cords of democracy, Libya lies prone to religious extremism and Al-Qaeda invasion and dominance. The perceived vengeance that the rebels unleashed on Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte can be a testament to a looming bad blood that will ensue between a new Libya and a disgruntled and wounded Sirte. The process of healing can only begin with a democratic Libya ready to reconcile all aggrieved parties and willing to make its political landscape all-inclusive, and its social structure secular. The international community should step in and help Libya fashion a true democratic union where all the different ethnic nationalities will stand in brotherhood with a common vision and dream - to make Libya pride of the Arab world and of Africa, an epitome of a secular nation where religiosity and its attendant extremism is removed from the fabric of political governance. Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Al-Gaddafi came, he saw, he conquered, and he was ultimately conquered. Long live a free and democratic Libya!
Kingsley C. Ogbuji
Texas, United States
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