Medical care was available to the public at no cost, food security was achieved in the desert country during his time, and by the regime's food policy, "no Libyan must go to bed hungry."
"Gaddafi deployed state funds toward providing education, health care and housing for all. Public education in the country became free and primary education compulsory for both sexes.
Medical care was available to the public at no cost, food security was achieved in the desert country during his time, and by the regime's food policy, "no Libyan must go to bed hungry."
- Sina Odugbemi, Author of a new book titled:" “JAPA”: A Journey Across Sahara Desert.My Maghreb Nightmares. The book will be presented to the public on Saturday, July 8 @ LTV 8. Time: 11 am.
Me: I attest to efforts to have food security and its benefits to the people in Libya during Gaddafi's time because the food was very cheap, available, accessible and affordable to all. I didn't see any Libyan begging for food or alms in Tripoli when I went there on occasion.
A young friend, an illegal immigrant from Nigeria to Libya who stayed in Sabha for months before he was deported back home, once told me of his experience as a painter in Libya.
He recalled his experience with his first customer, a family man who gave him and his friend a job to paint his house. He said the family fed them in the morning and afternoon with good food and fruits for four days that they worked there and they always packed plenty of raw food like rice, beans, bread and fruits for them to take home when they finished work.
He became apprehensive and worried that the man might be using food as barter for payment for the service rendered. But to his pleasant surprise, they were paid fully for their labour and they went home with extra food and fruits. No client in Nigeria did such kindness to him in Nigeria. That's normal practice in Libya then, when you invite artisans to work for you, you voluntarily feed them and give them food as a parting gift aside from paying them their bills.
I had a real-life experience of what Fela Anikulapo-Kuti described as "Jeun Ko Ku", "Waki & Die" and "Chop & Quench" in Libyan hotels when I went there with Sina Odugbemi for programmes. I remember the hotel we were lodged at during the preparatory meeting for the Conference on the Africans in the Diaspora. We refused to go to the restaurant for lunch buffet because we were resting in our different rooms so we ordered room service.
Some minutes after, a knock at my door by the lunch server. "Come in", I responded. A tall beautiful but flat-chested lady with attractive Mediterranean legs pushed a 4-layer food serving trolley into my room with a granite smile that revealed her sparkling white set of teeth.
Since the popular sexual assault case by a female room server against the former IMF boss, Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a New York hotel, which eventually cost him his job and political ambition to govern France, I have learned how not to admire female lunch servers or room keepers in any hotel I lodge, but we all know that Satan is powerful, so I took my liberty briefly.
Surprisingly the lady dropped the 4 - layer trolley with all the food, fruits, juices and cutlery which I earlier thought were also meant for other rooms and left my room in peace with another flash of granite smile. When I opened the "load of food" before me, I was perplexed. I concluded "this is food intimidation and harassment" which I considered unnecessary. I must report this "food harassment" to Sina immediately as my primary host and "Gaddafi boy" so I put a call to his room.
"Sina, se ki n'se wipe awon arabi yi fe fi ounje pawa o, (are you sure these your Libyan people won't kill us with food) because I don't know the meaning of this" food intimidation" here o. How can they serve me food that can feed 5 people for God's sake? I'm not going to eat in the evening o, as a protest against this food harassment.
Sina laughed and laughed and said that" Baba Sho, I was about to call you to tell you of my same experience before your call came in. You know that I had stayed in Libya for some time in 1990, that's their way of overfeeding themselves and strangers even in their universities, students eat until they are tired of eating, yet the cost is next to nothing. Gaddafi does everything for his people in excess. When you go to their privately run restaurants, it's the same thing, the poor and the rich eat the same quality food and they leave leftover food always. It's in this Libya that I saw cats and rats eating together in the same dustbin on a university campus and they always depart peacefully and graciously with animal solidarity and mutual respect for themselves. The food here is heavily subsidized by the government; that's why you don't see food beggars anywhere on the streets."
Haa! O ga o, Sina. Anyway, why should reasonable cats be wasting their time stressing and running after rats to kill for food when there is plenty of food leftover like roasted camel meat, chicken, fried and jollof rice to eat peacefully with rats with dignity?" I responded.
Oil wealth, if not looted by the thieving ruling class, brings development, succour, joy and gains and not pain always. Don't be fooled, stop listening to their repeated story of oil subsidy removal and patience after patience appeal while the criminal leaders are not patient from looting our commonwealth. Don't fool yourself even if you are being fooled.
Adeola Soetan