The Demise of Libya Since Muammar Gaddafi’s death
Libya was at the forefront of all news channels these last few days, albeit for all the wrong reasons. First, they played and lost to Nigeria in an Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) Qualifier in Uyo, on Friday, then, it was time to host the second leg of the encounter in Tripoli.
Then came the show of shame: The first sign of the problem was when the plane conveying the Super Eagles of Nigeria players was diverted to another airport. This wasn’t the initial plan. Next, for 13 hours at the diverted airport, the players were abandoned there with no food and access to Wi-Fi. It was a debacle of international proportions. How a nation like Libya could portray itself in such a bad light was quite shocking.
Soon, photos of Nigerian players sleeping like refugees at the airport started to surface. It was an eyesore to behold. Then, after an eternity of waiting, the Libyans finally sent a bus to take the players out. The bus in question was so small, it could barely fit 10 people not to talk of an entire national team and their backroom staff. The team rejected this bus and was hell-bent on returning home rather than going ahead with the game. That decision was sensible, there was no way they could execute a match in less than 24 hours when they hadn’t even checked into a hotel or had time to rest and train. So, return they did and back to safety.
It was in the middle of this horror hour that news emanated that the President of the Libya Football Federation, Abdelhakim Al-Shalmani, announced his resignation. It doesn’t take a genius to piece two and two together. The man must have been disgusted at the street-style antics and every other rubbish going on around the country’s football running that he had to leave with his dignity intact.
Strangely, this is not the first time the Libyans will be acting in this ugly manner. On the 21st of November 2023, when they were to host the Cameroonians in a crucial World Cup Qualifying match, they subjected their guest to the same treatment—left them stranded and sapped of any energy for football combat. Obviously, the strategy was clear: Frustrate them and hope that translates to the host’s superiority on the field. That is truly disgraceful. It only serves to shed a bad light on African football.
To compound matters, feelers indicate that, the Confederation of African Football (CAF), communicated to Nigeria to ensure they go ahead with the match as scheduled. Wow. These guys don’t care about anything. They care about their fixtures, that’s all. One would have thought that the right thing to do would be to sanction Libya so such an occurrence doesn’t repeat itself, but, no. Libya seemingly gets to walk away from this scot-free, while Nigeria gets on the receiving end of the cane, with a possible points deduction on the horizon. African football is, indeed, in shambles.
For me, if I am to look at this issue holistically, I will trace the origin of Libya’s unethical and substandard approach to football running to the demise of their former leader, Muammar Gaddafi. The origins can be traced back to 2011 when the Western world orchestrated the Libyan conflict to unseat Gaddafi through in-house rebellion. Gaddafi was anti-Western in every facet and dared to think of a United Arab world—one that would have posed significant threats to Western influence in many oil-rich Arab countries. Such an unfriendly leader needed to be put down and that they did successfully.
However, what they failed to realize, or, maybe, didn’t even care about was that, the fall of Gaddafi will be, by extension, the fall of Libya itself. Oh! How the mighty hath fallen. In just under a year after Gaddafi’s death in the streets of Libya, the once booming economy of the country was truncated. Its exchange rate with that of the dollar plummeted. In fact, reports of the slave trade in Libya began surfacing. Libya became home to all manner of despicable horrors, horrors that never, or, probably, minimally existed in Gaddafi’s time. I look at the Libyan story and cry for Africans. We are always outsmarted by the Whites and their ‘divide and rule’ strategy.
Today, that decline in the overall capacity of Libya, a consequence of their loss of a capable leader, is what you see spilling over to their sporting sector. They cannot seem to get anything working right in that country. Where the nation was once remarked for it efficiency, it is now known for its disregard for law and order. Sportsmanship and ethics have been thrown out the window by substandard individuals occupying sensitive positions. A clear case of a body without a sound head.
Therefore, the Super Eagles are merely victims of a new destabilized Libya. You cannot expect anyone to give what they do not have and Libya simply do not have the capacity to function right, let alone think it wise to handle affairs such as this properly in order to avert diplomatic tensions. They are too buried in their mediocrity to even see the big picture. It is what it is.
The best the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) can do is hand Libya a ban for their show of shame and hope that serves as a wakeup call, but, then again. If Libya wakes up in the sports sector, who wakes them up in all the other deteriorating segments of the country? Who revives Libya overall? Who will set them back on the glorious path they once were before all the Western-orchestrated melee? Will Libya ever be great again? This football saga is merely a harsh reminder of the sad reality of today’s Libya. Our African brothers need help.
