Muammar Gaddafi might be right on Nigeria

Sshh! Don't say it! Ok. Talk, but dont talk too much. No, talk too much but not in public. That line of reasoning seems to be the trailing path for most of public office holders, and politicians in Nigeria.

When has it become atrocious to air the truth, even though truth is bitter? When has truth become so much abominable that lies and hypocrisy are preferred? Why are we now quick to cover the mouth with the palm and call for the head of the man who attempts to voice such truth? So many whys and whens. But I will pause here.

And I say again, Muammar Gaddafi the President of Libya, might be (is) right! Just being mild with language. He didn't just say what was on his mind. He said what most Nigerian leaders fear to say, at least in public. Especially those from the South East and South South regions of Nigeria.

Like many onlookers I had stood aside to watch events unfold in my dear country, Nigeria. And now I ask ,“What was Gaddafi's crime?” Let me seek recourse to history. He was recently quoted by a Libyan press to have said that the practical solution to Nigeria's unsurmountable ethno-religious crises given the sour thumb that is Jos, Plateau State was for Nigeria to split into two nations. Muslim and Christian nations. He must have offered that hand of help having seen the more than five hundred corpses that were the aftermath of the crises in Jos within three months.

Then they said he stoked the fire. He proffered that Nigeria be divided along ethnic lines rather than religion as he had earlier suggested when some angry Nigerian politicians called his suggestion the wise thinking of an insane man. In fact, the Nigerian Senate President, David Mark, dismissed Gaddafi as a madman and called on the Senate and Nigerians to ignore such verbiage from him. The press and media became inundated with comments, rejoinders, lambaste especially that coming from the Nigerian Senate.

I may be out of hearing and as such couldn't have heard much of reasoning. That is why I am still lost as to know if what Gaddafi said was out of sync. He said Nigeria should get such solution as to end the senseless bloodbath in the country, and our leaders are crying blue murder. Do our leaders really mean well for us?

Perhaps, the problem with Gaddafi's comment was that many tried to analyse the messenger rather than the message. Agreed, the Libyan leader might have raised some controversial moments in the past. This piece does not seek to resurface such moments. Doing that will be tantamount to ambushing clear-thinking.

With the benefit of clearheadedness, his comment on Nigeria cannot be said to have emerged from a controversy ridden-mind, following the March 2010 cataclysm in Jos. I may not be learned enough to know about international diplomacy, but am vehemently sure that such a diplomacy as the Great Britain would have done is covering the mouth with the palm so that truth cannot be voiced! That's what makes the difference between the US and Britain.

Let me even ask: Was what Gaddafi said about Nigeria worse than what the US report released in March 2005 said about Nigeria that the country will split before 2020 or what some of the highly respected Islamic clerics who purported to have visited and spoken with the ailing Yar'Adua in Abuja recently are saying with their body language and deceiving Nigerians? Why bring back the issue of Yar'Adua when the Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is already carving a way forward for the country. Are the clerics not insinuating that come what may, Jonathan should not be running affairs as the country's president simply because he's not from the North and certainly not a Muslim? I leave you to answer all that.