Libya: Nigeria, South Africa in cold war over Gaddafi's fate

A cold war is brewing between Nigeria and South Africa over the fate of the embattled Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

While Nigeria is backing the rebel-controlled Transitional National Council (TNC) in Libya, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa is supporting Gaddafi.

But the Federal Government has been trying to manage the situation to avoid it degenerating into a major crisis.

There was however concern and panic over the likely release of Henry Okah, who is standing trial as a mastermind of the October 1, 2010 bomb blast in Abuja.

Investigation by our correspondent revealed that the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has maintained a parallel position with President Zuma over Gaddafi's fate.

But while Nigeria's position on the TNC is being supported by 34 African countries, only Uganda and Zimbabwe have teamed up with South Africa to align with Gaddafi.

Although South Africa initially headed an Ad hoc Committee on Libyan crisis, the panel could not achieve much.

It was learnt that a meeting held last week in Addis Ababa also broke the AU into two camps but with Zuma being humiliated because of a large following Nigeria attracted against Gaddafi.

It is not too weird if you consider African history.

During the anti-apartheid struggle, the West was largely sitting on the fence or silently complicit. (Israel was extremely stupid to help the South Africans put together an atomic bomb - who did they think the bomb would be used against?).

This opened an opportunity for all kind of nasty people, and they seized it with both hands. The Soviets wasted little time in training the future leaders of the ANC, the Chinese built a rail line from Zambia to Tanzania to break the South African monopoly of transport links to the sea and the Cubans sent troops to Angola in support of MPLA (who were fighting for independence from Portugal and fighting against the South African army). Gaddafi was very generous to pro-freedom movements through out East and Southern Africa.

Jacob Zuma, spent ten years on Robben Island and spent some time in Mozambique in exile, so he remembers Gaddafi as a kind benefactor.

Most of East and Southern Africa (both rulers and citizens) tend to like Gaddafi for these reasons.

In contrast, Nigeria has always seen Gaddafi as strategic rival. Nigeria spent a great deal of time quenching the flames that Gaddafi stoked in West Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone etc), so there is no love lost between Nigeria and Libya. In that context, Nigeria’s opposition to Gaddafi is understandable.

There is another deeper, darker and more sinister aspect to the frosty relations between much of Sub-Saharan Africa and the new regime in Libya. Black Africans don’t like Arabs very much and vice versa. This is a thousand year old problem. Gaddafi was many things, but he was not a rabid racist like the many in the new regime in Libya.

As we speak Blacks are being wrongly detained, lynched and left to die on the streets of ‘liberated’ Libya. This includes both Black Libyans and Black Sub-Saharan Africans. Naturally, this news hasn’t gone down very well on the streets of Johannesburg, Lagos, Kampala, Nairobi, Addis Ababa and Luanda.

(On another unrelated note - there is tremendous goodwill and residual sympathy for the Chinese and the Cubans in East and Southern Africa. If you don’t know African history you won’t appreciate it.)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.