GADDAFI SUFFERS THE FATE OF DICTATORS, DIES LIKE A DOG.

In what President Barack Obama described as a stark warning to other authoritarian leaders across the globe particularly the Middle East, iron-fisted rule as always "inevitably comes to an end" and such was the fate suffered by the former Libyan "strongman" and self-declared "King of Africa", Moummar Gaddafi. Not only did Gaddafi loss his grip over Libyans but the people of Libya, who suffered so much atrocities under his maximum power, went further to take their pound of flesh but this time with lots of blood. Gaddafi died in the hands of his people - the Libyan people; killed on the streets of Sirte like a common criminal or should Icheoku say, a DOG? 

What an irony of life that men think power is theirs to forever keep and to misuse same to the detriment of their people for whose primary benefit such power vested on the ruler in the first place. Gaddafi had every opportunity to be better and to change the course which eventually led to his undignified demise, but he did not positively engineer it. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely such that Gaddafi upon consolidating his vice-hold on the people of Libya became tone-deaf to their plight; and instead listened to a few select sycophantic inner circle members of his, who only told him what is melodious to his ears as long as they were left aboard the gravy-train. Today, October 20, 2011, as he was felled by volley of bullets of his Libyan people on the street of Sirte, none of those yes-men and yes-women fell with him nor were even around to share their leaders final moments on this earth enroute to rendezvousing with his seventy virgins. 

Moummar Gaddafi's fall from power, culminating to his shameful death on the street like a dog, shows the futility of many African leaders policy of "arming to the teeth." Instead of spending their country's resources wisely on building uplifting projects and institutions that could take their countries to the next level, they maniacally buy all sorts of weaponry from death-merchants all over the world with which they kill and maim their people just to put enough fear in them in order to or attempt to perpetuate themselves in power. Imagine all the Russian as well as possibly American and European tanks, fighter planes, missiles, rockets, other heavy weapons as well as all sorts of guns and ammunition which Gaddafi bought and paid for with Libyan's resources over the forty-two years he forcibly maintained himself in power? Yet these were not enough to deter a willing people, tired of his despotism, from moving against his hold on power which resulted to his cheap-death today. Those weapons could not protect him or save him nor keep him in power; they proved a no match for a people made nearly insane by his iron-fist inhuman rule of several decades. It is even possible that the bullet that dispatched him to the great beyond was bought by him or fired from a gun that was part of his amassed arsenal weapon of destruction of the Libyan people?  Such irrational drunken-sailor like purchase of weapons by African and third world leaders only succeeds in keeping those merchants of death and their home governments' citizens in their jobs, making more weapons including futuristic weapons to still be sold to those who will eventually succeed Gaddafi. Icheoku wonders the need for these weapons and to defend what, if these leaders could only provide a fair peoples-orientated governments? 

Moummar Gaddafi meant so many things to so many people - to Icheoku, he was an African patriot wanna-be, who did not know how to truly be patriotic and in a good way. He wanted a place for Africa on the world stage but went about it in the wrong way. He assumed unto himself the exalted leadership of the entire African continent as "King of Africa" without first consulting other African leaders or seeking and obtaining the consent of the supposedly governed peoples of Africa or should Icheoku yet say his "subjects?" In short he was a megalomaniac bi-polar personality who wished he had a bigger territory to preside over as he once championed a United States of Africa with Tripoli as its capital and Moummar Gaddafi its leader? He also wished he had a stronger army to bring about his desired political changes both in the continent of Africa and the entire world in general. During his UN visit, he reportedly called for President Barack Obama to remain a life-long president of America, exhibiting the delusion with which some people identifies him with. He was a character in study and he reportedly still had nightmares over the President Reagan's missile delivery right inside his bedroom in the eighties.  

Gaddafi's foray into other African countries politics led to his legendary destabilizing role, as a sponsor of military coups de tats and forceful take over of governments in countries whose governments were not ready to play his game or dance to his dictates. From Thomas Sankara to Charles Taylor and to some extent, Nigeria's Sani Abacha, all African unelected leaders, who Gaddafi had and maintained some relationship with; and was reputed to have brought them to power in some way. Some sources even claimed that during the dictatorship of Sani Abacha of Nigeria, when Nigeria was embargoed by the international community, that Gaddafi flew into Abuja the sum of seven hundred million dollars in cash to help Abacha continue to run the country?  Icheoku learnt this gesture was not out of his love for Nigerians but as an investment on Islamism as he and his other North African and Middle East zealotry cohorts tried to spread Islamic sharia throughout Nigeria. His last foray into Nigerian politics came just few months before the Arab Spring uprising, when he called for the division of Nigeria into two - the Muslim north and Christian south with Abuja and Lagos as their respective capitals.  

Anyway love him or hate him, Moummar Gaddafi was a character that captured world attention, albeit negatively. The West hated his guts and his obtuse sense of pride in Africa, then there was Lockerbie, the German nightclub, other strings of terrorism that bore his signature, his support for the Arafat's PLO  and then the springing out of prison of the only convicted and ailing PAN AM bomber and the West just had enough. They planned and schemed for a way to get Gaddafi to finally pay his debt to the world and then came the Arab Spring, which became the icing on the cake to get Gaddafi. The rest as they say is better left for historians to do their chronicling. What a faith accompli and mission accomplished, the death of Moummar Gaddafi is; as the West will no longer have such a mercurial character to be wary of in that part of the world with a huge salivating deposit of fossil fuel to die for. May the eccentric soul of Moummar Gaddafi now find rest somewhere in their version of paradise.

Icheoku will however pause to say congratulations to all those who made the change in Libya possible including the Europeans, Libyan revolutionaries and particularly President Hussein Obama, who, despite his biological affinity to Africa took on headlong, these Arab dictators in North Africa and Middle East, who were previously courted, wined and dined by past US governments in order not to upset the world oil cart. President Obama is a doer and has done creditably well fighting our enemies such that were the coming 2012 election to be solely based on keeping America safe, boy would he have won a landslide victory. But the economy still sucks and Americans often vote their stomach, so it will be somewhat an uphill climb. Just like one acquaintance told Icheoku, "you gotta blame somebody for your situation in life irrespective of the fact that that other might not be the source of your problems." Further that safety with an empty stomach still kills by starvation and likewise does a full stomach without safety kill by insecurity; so it is not a question of "either/or" but a question of "and/both" security and good economy.  

But the good news however, is that the Republicans are running on empty candidates and have yet to offer Americans a real alternative t President Obama. Their current line of presidential wanna-bes are people laden with various baggage that make them toxic-candidates and therefore highly unsellable to Americans as president. Put in the words of David Axelrod, these jostling Republican candidates are merely same old same old wines in old skins and who wants to drink of such stuff when there is a better and fresher wine at the wedding in Cannan in the current president? As it stands today, challenged by any of the nine Republican Presidential candidate wanna-bes, President Obama will win his reelection in 2012, admitted it will be fight to the finish line, but he shall first embrace the tape. A photo-finish is also possible but the slow motion will show a President Barack Hussein Obama putting his feet first across the line even if within micro-seconds. 

The conclusive change of guard in Tripoli with the killing of Moummar Gaddafi has yet added another feather to the hat of President Obama's effort to keep America safe and pay back old debts owed to America by some of the world's worst persons. As one commentator put it, "For Obama, the outcome allowed him to stand victorious in the Rose Garden, taking note also of the death this year of prominent al-Qaida leaders at the hands of the United States. And he did it without a single US soldier dying in the battle field. In a span of few months, the country has seen the demise of infamous men who either had killed Americans or haunted the United States by targeting it for terror attacks. Obama ordered a daring special forces raid in Pakistan in May that led to the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the architect of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Last month, a U.S. drone strike in the mountains of Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen and prominent al-Qaida figure who was deemed as having an operational role in plots against the U.S. The plots included two nearly catastrophic attacks on U.S.-bound planes an airliner in 2009 as it tried to land in the United States and cargo planes last year. Then came the confirmed reports Thursday that Gaddafi was dead." Icheoku says any past or aspiring US president with a better national security records than this President Obama, especially as it appertains to America's subsisting security needs should please stand up; but albeit no one is standing. 

Gaddafi is no more and his blood was spilled in the streets of Sirte, his lifeless body dragged through the streets of Sirte and tossed unto the back of a pickup like a roadkill or hunted-down scoundrel. Compared to Saddam Hussein, he did not die a better or more edifying death - although both of them were literally speaking, "smoked out of a burrow" whether a drainage pipe or dug up rat-hole; at least Sadam Hussein had some moments to enjoy this world before he was dispatched. He was tried, convicted and hung without his blood spilling on the streets of Baghdad or Tikrit. He also enjoyed doing his own laundry while his trial lasted and even had the opportunity of shouting at the trial judge? But Moummar Gaddafi lasted a few fleeting moment between his being spotted by his hunters and his own demise. May be only Romania's former dictator Nickolai Ceausescu's fate came closer to Gaddafis, as his people executed him alongside his wife in Bucharest moments after his fall. Icheoku asks, would such fate as befell Gaddafi serve as a lesson to other dictators around the world, your guess is as good as mine. May the spilled blood of Gaddafi prove to be the glue that will bind and hold Libyans together as they stumble through their journey forward towards building a functional democratic society where men, women and other minorities of all sorts shall freely cohabit and thrive. What a way to end!