Having failed in Libya, Qaddafi may succeed in Africa

Libya’s Moamar Qaddafi is in Accra, Ghana to promote his dream of establishing the United States of Africa becoming the Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Mason, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin and George Washington of Africa. A dream, I am sure many average Africans who have been cheated out of their dreams by their leaders who are nothing more than criminals and thieve the likes of Mobuto, Charles Taylor and Samuel Doe.
The problem is that Qaddafi does not fit the bill of a founding father of modern Africa. After 34 years of absolute dictatorial leadership of Libya, Qaddafi does not have much to show for and Libya, the richest of all African nations based on per capita income (before all of the open theft of the treasury) have nothing to speak about.
Over the last 33 years, Libya’s estimated income from oil amounted to some $ 700 Billions for a country with a population not more than 5 million people. With that kind of money, Libya should be a model state in terms of development of institutions, infrastructure and living standard perhaps equal to or better than Dubai. Yet Libya is less of a developing country that its money could have done and with hardly any outstanding achievements. Qaddafi is solely responsible for the miserable state that is Libya.
Rather than lead his country and people in a fast track of human and physical development, Qaddafi lead his people through decades of irresponsible and reckless leadership.
For the kind of income Libya had for the last year, every Libyan should have a million dollar home, 3 cars, and with hospitals and universities matching that of the US and Western Europe with a network of highways unmatched any where. Instead Libya has one of the worst infrastructures of any country in North Africa, with no renowned institutions of higher learning and any known hospitals and health care facilities.
Qaddafi over the years have lead his people on a wild chase of an ideal democracy that resulted in utter failure, with popular committees running supermarkets and running health ministries. in his people committees running every thing and ruing every thing. Not to mention his forays in arming liberation and revolutionary armies all over the world with the exception of South Africa, thanks to its wise leadership in the person of Nelson Mandela, Qaddafi’s billions of dollars went down the drain similar to his other billions which were stolen by his revolutionary committee and were used by the Qaddafi family as their private funds.
Yes, once in a while Qaddafi makes some sense and he does speak on behalf of the poor and the disfranchised, but his tenure as leader of Libya is nothing but a disaster.
The embargo on Libya caused the Libyan economy more than $ 30 billions in losses to the Libyan economy, not to mention the more than $ 3.6 billions Libya had to pay as compensations to the victims of the Pan Am and UTA crashes.
Not sure if Qaddafi is any wiser now than when he came to power, but he will do his people and Africa lots of good if he simply retire from his long dictatorial leadership position and allow for free elections and an orderly transition to democracy with the building of democratic and accountable, transparent institutions in Libya instead of his one man show with thousands of clowns as chorus.
There are not too many things that I agree with Qaddafi on, however I do agree with his decision to abandon Libya’s nuclear program, which I think was a brilliant idea, and made lots of sense. The money could be used to build decent housing, hospitals and of course to train Libyan nurses instead of importing nurses from Bulgaria.
African is in a big mess, thanks to the greed and criminal behaviors of the colonial Europeans in Africa, where they were responsible for the massacre and murder of tens of millions of people, and responsible for the theft of the entire wealth of many nations, if not the continent. However, Europe and imperialism are not the only cause of misery for Africa. Its entire leadership with very minor exceptions, such as that of South Africa has been nothing but a total disaster directly responsible for the failure of Africa to develop and emerge as a continent where citizens can have some hope and some dreams.
Well, why not, perhaps Qaddafi having failed his own people can do some good in promoting the United States of African and bring hope to millions of disfranchised Africans who have been robbed of their future by incompetent, corrupt and criminal leadership. Perhaps Qaddafi can contribute some $30 millions toward the establishment of the American University of Tangier and establish a $10 million scholarship for African students.