LIKE those whom the gods want to destroy, embattled Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi must have been struck insane as he continues to boast of martyrdom in the face of disgraceful exit from power.

Since August 21st when NATO backed rebels began their determined push to flush him  out of Power, the world has watched with awe as the man who spent 42 years,  to build his country, could allow his effort to be laid waste by a combined team of rebels with external forces to devastate the north African country in just six months, all in a senseless attempt to cling on to power.

From Benghazi to Brega, from Mistrata to Zawiya and Tripoli, the rebels have taken control of 90% of Libya and maintains effective control of Tripoli, to enable the National Transition Council to form government on the Libyan soil.

The ease with which the rebels took his compound in Bab Al-Aziziya, Tripoli and the uncertainty surrounding his whereabout are enough to tell Gaddafi that the end has come to his 42 year old regime. There are speculations that he could be hiding in Sirte, the last bastion of resistance by his loyalists. But he has remained impervious to reason.

Majority of Libya’s 6 million people, have shown overwhelming rejection of Gaddafi’s continued stay in power and the world has shown that there is no place for Gaddafi in the comity of nations. Yet Gadhafi is banking on a possible slip by the rebels to turn into militia groups and fight among themselves, as we saw in Somalia and Liberia  in 1991 and Iraq in 2003.

This could then position him to bounce back.  But that calculation is another sheer madness that typifies Muammar Gaddafi’s style of leadership. We have seen the likes of Gaddafi in Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire, Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt,  Abdullahi Wade of Senegal, Meles  Zenawi of Ethiopia, Omar El Bashir of Sudan, Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Mamadou Tanja of Niger, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Eduardo Dos Santos of Angola, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Paul Biya of Cameroun,  Felix Houphuet- Boigny, Gnyasingbe Eyadema, Siad Barre,  Mobutu Sese Seko, Omar Bongo, Idi Amin Dada, Milton Obote and Samuel Doe, the list is endless.

These harbingers of eternal embarrassment on African leadership and indelible blight on the collective consciousness of humanity, not even the peer review mechanism set up by the African Union could put them on the path of honour in public office. Like Saddam Hussein in 2003, Gaddafi appears to have gone into hiding and perhaps wants to be picked up in a hole. The question now is what becomes of a post Gaddafi Libya? The first stage will be a process of UN supervised disarmament of the rebels that were armed by the Western nations to levy war on their  power drunk leader.

We saw how Angola, Somalia, Ethiopia, Liberia, Iraq, Afghanistan et al degenerated into uncontrollable anarchy after their liberation struggles. This is where the Mustafa Abdel Jalil led NTC has to be magnanimous in victory and embark of a reconciliation and reconstruction programme that will restore trust and confidence in Libyans. The search for Gaddafi and his children should be without a feeling of vendetta.

There should be measured amnesty for some Libyans who were misguided in their blind support for Gaddafi and the trial of those who committed crimes against the state and humanity should not be made a television show to avoid opening wounds that will further traumatise the country. During his days in power, Gaddafi was a destabilising factor in Africa and global politics while we commend his support for the liberation struggles in Southern Africa, we cannot forget in a hurry what he did in Chad where his desire to annex the uranium Aouzou strip was a motivation for sponsoring a 22 year old war in Nigeria’s North East neighbour. His role in Liberia, Sierra Leone were heinous, so was the dastardly acts of incitement of ethno- religious hatred in Nigeria.

Having renounced support for terrorism and paid compensation for the evils of the PAN AM 103 flight, the West should treat Libya with dignity. It should see the post Gaddafi era beyond the scramble for oil and post-war contracts. Libya must be assisted to get back to the civilised process of governance and desirable economic growth.