Libya’s leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi made headlines recently when he called for the partitioning of Nigeria as an answer to solving the unrest between its Christian and Muslim populations.
Speaking for myself and for my organisation, Glór Moslamach, such antics are plainly ridiculous coming from someone who dresses in women’s clothes. But that’s the least of the colonel’s crimes.
The man has a dark history that people today are generally unaware of. For the past 40 years Libya has been stuck under his tyrannical regime. He has overseen the killing of university students for daring to challenge his infamous Green Book, and rejected the core Islamic creed by denying the Prophetic method as a valid source for legislation in Islam.
Really, the only reason why Libya is not another Iraq today is because Britain came to its rescue, saving it from the Bush administration’s regime change list.
How Gaddafi was made the previous head of the African Union is beyond me.
Like his choice of clothes, Gaddafi’s use of the partition of India as an example for Nigeria is pathetic. Does he even know that India has a greater Muslim population compared to Pakistan? The reality is that the partition of India has not resulted in peace throughout south Asia. Far from it, in fact: the decades of antagonism between Pakistan and India have created a ready market for the western weapons industry.
It does not matter to them how many Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were killed during the years of partition and the bloody wars that the two nations have fought since their creation. And the result of decades of continued animosity and mistrust is two nuclear-armed states at political loggerheads.
But getting back to Gaddafi – his comments are a veil to cover his sinister motives. Nigeria belongs to both Muslims and Christians who have lived in harmony with each other for decades. The problems of Nigeria, like most of the countries in the Muslim world, are rooted in a lack of sincere and enlightened leadership, nothing more.
The 150 million people of Nigeria are talented and hard working, and they don’t need a nefarious man like Gaddafi to tell them how to sort out their problems.
Here’s a better idea: why don’t Libyans get rid of Gaddafi to solve their problems?
Qasim Afridi is a member of Glór Moslamach
