Hills, I must take a bit of your time to explain this. The reason why Africa is besotted with poor leadership is due to misplaced hero worship and misunderstood concept of respect for the dead. Added to this is our bias, nepotistic orientation and thoroughly disheartening notion of my brother, my friend does no wrong when juxtaposed to an engagement with others.
Gadaffi and Saddam Hussein were despots of the meanest order. They overthrew previous regimes through bloody seizure of power. Neither Libya nor Iraq were impoverished before their era. To hold on to power, they ruthlessly suppressed any opposition or attempt at uprising. They callously ruled with despotic abandon. They raped women, kidnapped and used them as their sadist and depraved sexual desire would allow. It is usually romantic to admire a despot from a considerable safe distance. It is only when the action of the despot affects us personally that we realise how horrible those actions are. It was a sage called Edgar Allan Poe who stated that the pain experienced from an injury to our little finger causes us more anxiety than the news of the death of millions.
When the going was good, Gadaffi and Saddam Hussein, including Mobutu and many other despots were propped up as African leaders by the western world. Disagreements arising from sharing formula are usually the causes for toppling or invasion of countries all over the world. It has never been due to the fight for emancipation or the protection of African rights.
One of the most criminal acts undertaken by Gadaffi was the blowing up of an airplane with over 200 innocent citizens aboard over Lockerbie in Scotland. That and many of such behaviours were acts of terrorism that the western world couldn’t have forgiven him for.
African leaders are so callous that they could trade away the lives of their citizens for personal gains and aggrandizement. The western leaders are less callous with the welfare of their citizens.
Due to our collective amnesia Africans are quick to discount the impacts of past misgovernance to embrace prospects of current gains.
I wonder how someone could admire the despotic manifestations of Sanni Abacha as a prudent and rational ruler despite all those atrocities he committed during his regime. Africa indeed is a continent in search of heroes. Gadaffi was no hero. It was his despotic behaviour that led to the ruin of his country. The argument that he was planning to introduce a common currency and unify all of Africa is hogwash and far fetched. How would Africa be unified under one leader when most African states are even fighting for secession. Nigeria, Sudan, Cameroon, are experiencing various forms of agitation for self rule.
No African currency is recognized or respected outside the shores of each State. You go to Ghana you have to exchange your Naira to dollars to enable transactions. You can’t exchange your naira to shillings in Kenya or any other African country. You will only be allowed to exchange it to the dollar or pound sterling or Euro.
Despite all these, at the demise of Gadaffi who died due to the stupidity of the African big man mentality some misguided persons would believe that Gadaffi was a hero who would have unified Africa with a common currency and all of that.
It was just as well that Buhari was allowed to rule otherwise the song would have been that a messiah who would have transformed Nigeria to United States was not given the chance to administer his messianic mission.
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