Baying for blood is the hallmark of the crowd, that unthinking and undiscerning lot. So, the reported killing of former Libyan leader, Muammer Ghaddafi, after capture; as well as the street rejoicing can only be the work of plebeians. I do not grudge them.They have a right to their wild party; a tyrant who ruled their nation for almost 42 years is now finally gone, with some members of his family.Hurray! Democracy will begin to take root in the bad boy nation of Arab. But, is it really that simple' Are there lessons for the world in the saga, particularly Africa, and more particularly Nigeria'We have trod this path before in Yorubaland, if history is any guide. A certain military general Bashorun Gaa, who started out as the saviour of his people grew too powerful and self-opinionated and became a menace to his entire community, killing, maiming and becoming generally brutish. Even the royalty was not spared as his military officers killed at will and could not be questioned. It took a combination of forces ' NATO, if you like ' to take him out.Upon defeat, history goes, Gaa was made to suffer the worst of untold barbarity, to make him have a feel of the pains he had inflicted on the people. He was tied to the stake and every citizen was permitted to take a slice of his flesh. He bled to death.Perhaps the greatest undoing of Ghaddafi, and the excuse that the oil execu-thieves masquerading as 'world leaders' needed for this brazen invasion of Libya, was the perpetuation of self in office by the deceased leader.Forty-two years is surely too long a period for someone to rule a people against their wish. If he allowed the lies of palace jesters and contractors to convince him that the people of Libya, with no exception, loved his monarchical rule even when he was not born a royal, then he got the right comeuppance.But, was Ghaddafi alone in self-perpetuation in office' Certainly not. Then, why has NATO been criminally silent in those other countries that have not allowed democracy to take root' Why the special interest if not oil'Take Nigeria: Virtually all the country's leaders from inception longed for self-perpetuation in office. Even the now 'Man of God' who wants the people to pray their troubles into extinction ' a defeatist approach to life-threatening issues, if you ask me ' General (Dr.) Yakubu Gowon was ousted from power, largely on account of shifting the goal post on hand over.The hero, Murtala Muhammed, who kicked Gowon out of office did not live long enough in office for one to make a full and proper assessment of his determination to quit on the appointed date. Suffice it to say that he made the handover to a democratically-elected leader the focal point of his administration. Upon his death came a military Head of State, Olusegun Obasanjo who dutifully handed over to civilians and received world acclaim for it, even when there were clear signs that his then deputy, Shehu Musa Yar'Adua was strategically put in office to ensure that power returned to base ' firmly in Northern hands ' very quickly.The succeeding Shehu Shagari government was a democracy, guided by term limits. He was kicked out early in his second term so it is difficult to determine if he would truly have loved to continue in office one way or another.But the 'saviour' of December 31,1983, Muhammadu Buhari, who led the coup that pushed out Shagari would have been the very first Ghaddafi archetype in Nigeria: Just like his now deceased counterpart in Libya, Buhari did not have any exit plan. He simply took over what he considered his family title and continued to rule with iron fist: Enforcing roadside discipline with horsewhips and throwing open people's warehouses to sell essential commodities therein at controlled prices, not minding the cost at which the shop owners procured them and their right to do business as business. not as charity. But the masses hailed him for helping them deal with usurious traders, but also groaned at his other dictatorial tendencies.It was therefore no surprise that they took to the streets to celebrate the coming of the gap-toothed one, who threw open Buhari's detention centres and freed the people. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida did more: he smiled at the people. He also gave them a transition to civil rule plan. What more could a people do' They fell in love with him and his adorable wife, who was a fashion icon in her days. It took quite a while for the people to know that Babangida had no plan to quit office and that he was clamping more people in detention than he had freed from Buhari's gulag.The chain of events that followed his serial acts of dishonesty on quitting office brought in a certain Ernest Shonekan who deluded himself into thinking that he could also continue as an appointed president when the person who was elected to that office was alive and, literally, kicking. In no time, the devil incarnate in dark goggles took over. Sani Abacha, the most senior military chief left behind by a fleeing Babangida clamped the elected President, Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola into detention and continued to reign.His court jesters also devised a scheme that would make Abacha succeed Abacha, since the cry across the length and breadth of the country was for a return to democracy. In his era, Nigeria witnessed the worst form of brazen theft of the people's will, as television commercials showed the gradual change from military cap to that of the civilian in a disingenuous plot tagged: Who The Cap Fits!The same 'world leaders' who physically went to Libya to impose democracy by force of arms looked the other way while Nigerian leaders either blatantly refused to quit or unfurled devilish schemes to continue in office. At the very best, they issued press statements condemning the Nigerian dictators and gave easy passage into their countries, to local agitators who were being hounded here. Reason: Even in their 'madness', the local dictators in Nigeria did not threaten the economic interests of the 'world leaders' the way Ghaddafi always did. When the much-hated Abacha started making alternative friends, the 'liberators' of Libya knew they had to act fast. In very controversial circumstances, Abacha was said to have died in the hands of Indian prostitutes. To 'balance the equation' and not give room for any Northern group-feeling of being short-changed, which once led to pogrom and civil war, the 'world leaders' procured the death of Abiola in detention.Then oil business continued.When Obasanjo returned to the office he had voluntarily left 20 years earlier, hopes were high that all the problems of the country would be over. They multiplied a thousand times. He threw the country from one crisis to another. To compound it, he also went the Ghaddafi way, seeking self-perpetuation. Thanks to the Almighty press and Nigerians in general, Obasanjo, most reluctantly handed over but ensured that it was to someone he knew had frail health and who could run back to him for assistance even in retirement.For the brief period that he was in office, however, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua was nobody's boy. He took his decisions and ran the country to the best of his abilities. But the Almighty, the ultimate decider of fates, determined that President Yar'Adua's time was up.Time will tell if the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan is his own man, although the signs are ominous going by the recent invasion of a newspaper house ostensibly upon the complaint of the former leader and the presidency's distancing of itself from the show of shame. The same Police force that has failed to root out the Boko Haram menace stormed a newspaper house in a commando style to arrest editors. If the current travail of former Ogun State Governor, Gbenga Daniel is also the handiwork of Obasanjo, who was the effective leader of the opposition to the government of his own party at the state, eventually leading the party to suffer great losses not only in the state but also the entire region, then sometime soon Nigerians will rise up against their own Ghaddafi. Perhaps, the most fitting understanding of the Ghaddafi era is the rumour that efforts to bring back Nigerians from the war-torn country were being frustrated by the Nigerians who preferred being killed on the streets of Libya to returning home! That is the home that the Federal Government wants to make hotter with higher fuel prices; the home which its citizens in peace time regard as worse than the war ravaged country left behind by Ghaddafi.Soon, the NATO fighter jets that landed bombs in Libya will give way to planes that will carry international oil execu-thieves. Just remember, Ghaddafi did not leave Libya a mountain of debts like Nigeria's 'leaders'.
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