I have not come to praise Gaddafi, but to set facts right about his demise. As a Sierra Leonean, we felt the brunt of war through Charles Taylor and Foday Sankoh financed by Gaddafi. The RUF/AFRC, a rebel organisation headed by Foday Sankoh was funded by Gaddafi through Charles Taylor, lives and properties all over Sierra Leone were destroyed by this rebel war. There is not a Sierra Leonean who was not affected by this demonic war, first of its kind in the sub region. We still have amputees and burnt houses all over the country.

But the election of President Alhaji Tejan Kabbah, the war that was started in 1991 finally came to an end in 2000. Colonel Gaddafi later on found out through President Kabbah that he was supporting the wrong people and repented. Gaddafi started with Pan Arabism but was turned off with the conservative reactionary and puppet like Arabs who were Pro Europe and American. He then decided to work with some socialist Heads of State in Africa, just like his predecessors in the person of Ben Bella of Algeria, Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. He came in contact unfortunately, with people like Charles Taylor who lied to him that he was waging a socialist revolution on the West Coast of Africa and elsewhere in the continent. Gaddafi bank rolled out so many of this fake socialist revolutionists including Charles Taylor. Some met him in Libya under the guise of revolutionaries.

Late Col. Muamar Gadhafi

He did a lot of reparations and prominent among them was the donation of two ships loaded with rice, which is today benefiting all Sierra Leoneans. The proceeds of these two ships load of rice were transformed to NASS1T, a social institution which had benefited Sierra Leoneans in all works of life. He also sent buses to ameliorate the transportation problems in the country. This is felt even today. Tractors were also provided by Colonel Gaddafi for farming, ferries were also provided for the use of Sierra Leoneans to cross over to Lungi for passengers to join with international flights.

This is just to mention some of Gaddafi’s aid to Sierra Leone besides building a wonderful Mosque in the East End of Freetown for Sierra Leonean Muslims. Flight tickets were provided for pilgrims to the Holy land of Mecca. Imams were put on a payrolls and some visited Libya. He was still willing to do some more, but he is no more. Gaddafi can be remembered for his positive and negative roles in Sierra Leone.

For Africa, there is not a country that did not taste a piece of Libya’s pie in the form of building infrastructures, mosques, cash, agriculture etcetera. But I realised that except for South Africa, Mali, Zimbabwe, Niger, almost all African Heads of State never raised a finger to defend him in fear of Western repercussion, most of them, Africa Heads of States are “Paper Tigers”. Gaddafi was nominated an Honourary Member of Parliament by the Sierra Leone Government and was also Head of The African Union.

Brother Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was killed about two months ago in what was termed as a revolution. Gaddafi ruled Libya for forty-two years ever since he overthrew his uncle King Idriss in a bloodless coup. King Idriss, who was a puppet of the western world, was governing Libya as tribal head as compared to his nephew who ruled Libya as a nation state. Libya has the largest crude oil reserves in the world. Before Colonel Gaddafi took over the oil money, derived was spent by King Idriss family and his cohorts in casinos in Europe and America. The country remained under developed and impoverished.

During Gaddafi’s reign, the desert was not only transformed into oasis but into vast land for agriculture and other meaningful uses. Every Libyan was provided with a house free, free health system and with free education. The road infrastructure was improved compared to developed countries. Constructions were going on everywhere in the country. Most Libyans were gainfully employed and those who were not, received monthly stipends.

Libya provided work for migrant workers especially Africans. Today Libya is in disarray, no government, anarchy and there are seven thousand prisoners mostly from Sub Sahara Africa tortured and sexually assaulted with their human rights violated. Before the so called revolution, Gaddafi visited many European countries and was received with on red carpets and treated like a King.

All because of Libya’s crude oil! But Gaddafi still maintained that his oil was not for grabs for European industries. The western countries Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece were so much in financial crisis that they needed to be bailed out by rich European countries, like Germany and the IMF. These are the people who killed Gaddafi. They even approached The People’s Republic of China for loan, which was at one time their enemy and termed undemocratic and human rights non observer.

The “gun boat diplomacy” advocated by Henry Kissinger one time US Secretary of State was adopted by these Europeans. The gun boat diplomacy was “if you have an essential commodity and you refuse to give it to me, I will take it by force”.

NATO supported rebels from Benghazi to attack Colonel Gaddafi and his forces. But the Colonel’s forces were too strong for the rebels that NATO and UN had to declare a no fly zone in Libya and with all these it was not an easy work over to capture Tripoli. The Colonel’s forces fought for nine months. This is the first time that a rebellion has been recognised as a legitimate government when there was still an existing government elected by the people.

Britain, Italy and France had financial crises due to mismanagements and bad governance. In Britain the Prime Minister David Cameron is much more concerned with Commonwealth countries that receive aid to become homosexuals and lesbians before they could be given aid knowing full well that African countries would kick against this policy as an excuse in their impoverish and financial problems.

David Cameron was suspended at Oxford University for smoking ganja. Bacchus Silvio Berlusconi has been Prime Minister for seventeen years. This man does not go to bed with one female alone, instead prefers two or more at a time after his Gong-Gong party. As for the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy, he prefers a hobojo as his first lady divorcing his beautiful wife, given intoxicated speeches.

Dominic Strauss-Khan lost his job as IMF Director through mysterious circumstances with allegations that he raped a Guinean maid in his New York hotel suite. Strauss-Khan led the opinion polls in France to be the next President. He lost the qualification because of this allegation not to contest against Sarkozy. HMM!

A word of caution today is Gaddafi, tomorrow it might be you as Head of African State. If you have resources that are needed by Europeans either you give it to them for peanuts or they take it from you by force. All of them are coming as ‘’investors” to Africa, buying vast land acreage for bio-fuels because of global pollution caused by their industries in their homes.

There is no place in Europe, China would not permit them in Asia, and so the only place left for them is Africa. So one should not be happy over European investors in Africa, we have been with Europeans for almost five hundred years and there is no development to write about. Angola a former colony of Portugal has now become a donor country to her colonial Master Portugal. Why can’t African countries try the Chinese? China has developed so fast from 1949 to become the second largest financial power in the world.

Our African people giving their lands for bio-fuel plantations will remain landless (which is the only source of income for them) and abject poverty for generations yet unborn. But some of us still remember when George Bush Junior, former President of the USA invaded and attacked Saddam Hussein under the pretext of looking for lethal weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein was killed and Iraq was destroyed. There are still killings in Iraq after ten years; Allah alone knows when it will come to an end.

Both Americans and Iraqis have died in millions comparing the same scenario to Libya.