Mr. Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa, the minority spokesman on foreign affairs is an irritant. He is one politician given to outrageous statements which he spews out at opportune times with one goal in mind — to bask in the limelight.
If you doubt my frank assertion about this man and his penchant for the absurd, just take a look at his recent statement regarding the shameful and despicable acts of violence being perpetrated against young black Africans in Libya, some of whom are being sold as slaves.
Mr. Ablakwa, in his typical bombastic and hugely naive fashion, called for a military intervention to remedy the ghastly situation in Libya. What? I had to blink twice. A military intervention in an African nation?
Ablakwa deliberately left out details about his call for military action in Libya. He did not specify which African nation’s army he would want to see undertake that difficult task of liberating the young African men and women from their Libyan captors.
Or was Mr. Ablakwa thinking of the African Union to come to the rescue? The AU, Ablakwa should be told in plain terms, is averse to military interventions.
All told, Ablakwa was evasive, deceptive as usual, and completely misleading. He knows deep in his heart that his proposal is nothing but bunk, the musings of a simpleton, a hapless political operative who just loves attention.
Nobody is excusing or justifying the behavior of a few errant and grossly indecent Libyans. By engaging in a trade that at one point in history dealt a devastating blow to Africans and the African continent and symbolized man’s cruelty towards another man, these irresponsible Libyans have brought shame and guilt to their country. They should be hunted down and brought to justice.
But, the country has suffered enough. It is going through a a hard and bitter phase, and the last time we checked, Libya had three governments, all at each other’s throat.
A military intervention, if it ever comes to pass and I have my doubts that any serious African political leader is even thinking along this line, will make the already bad situation in Libya worse.
The western intervention in 2011 that overthrew Col Gaddafi tore the country apart, bringing into the open the naked hostilities that the murdered Gaddafi had managed to keep under the lid for forty years. Putting the country back again, will take generations.
Mr. Ablakwa would have been better off discussing the harsh economic conditions in sub-saharan African countries that compel our young men and women to go on the dangerous journey through the desert to Libya with its vast collection of armed groups.
The jobs that will keep our youth at home just aren’t there. And we expect them to stay home, and starve? We must be kidding. The dreadful slave trade situation in Libya and all it entails, mean that African politicians like Ablakwa must make a commitment to work hard and create valuable economic conditions that will inturn generate prosperity at home.
This is the only certifiable way to keep our sons and daughters from the clutches of those horrible Libyan slave traders.
