Tragedy: Parallelisms between Bashorun Gaha and Gaddafi KAYODE KETEFE If we look beyond the barriers of generational anachronism and irreconcilability of their spatial worlds, we would definitely see many parallelisms in the lives of the late Libyan leader, Col. Muamar Gaddhafi and the eighteenth century Prime Minister of Oyo Empire, Bashorun Gaha. There are a number of intriguing parallelisms between these two African tyrants, though they lived at different locales and timelines; they shared common passions, psychology and destiny. Their lives, strangely, project some uncanny analogous trajectories. Bashorun Gaha was the Prime Minister of Oyo during the reign of the Emperor, Alaafin Abiodun (who ruled between 1770–1789) Despite the sophisticated Oyo traditional political system with its built-in principle of checks and balances wherein powers were shared between powerful institutions like Alafinate, the Ogboni (Land cult) and the Oyomesi (Council of Ministers). The wily Bashorun Gaha, as the Head of Oyomesi, singularly managed to subvert the power balance, disrupted the system and usurped maximum political powers. He killed three Alaafins in quick succession and became a terror to the ancient city and its then fledgling empire. When Abiodun became Alaafin, he devised a plan to survive; he would go surreptitiously every morning to Gaha's abode, (nay palace) to do obeisance and pay homage to Gaha whose ego was satiated by this incongruous, dishonourable, vile submission. But Gaha had under-estimated Alaafin Abiodun's astuteness and reckoned he had overawed and turned him into a puppet, Abiodun was only bidding for auspicious times to launch an insurrection that would root out Gaha once and for all. With this little introduction of Gaha, the Gaha/Gaddafi's lives similarities may now be highlighted. Firstly, both characters had astronomical rise, (even if illegally procured,) and exercised unrestrained maximum powers at the peak of their ascendancy. In the picture painted by the renowned Yoruba historian, Rev. Samuel Johnson, Gaha came across as a being who derived tremendous delight from human misery. He was wickedness personified; a reference point in pure sadism. His pastimes consisted of killing, maiming and seizing other's properties at will. Gaddafi, for his part, was a blood thirsty tyrant who suppressed and repressed real and imagined oppositions with utmost brutality. Both Gaddafi and Gaha shared the delusion of exaggerated view of their own importance, thus, they construed every modicum of dissent as an unpardonable affront to their insuperable majesty. For the duo therefore, dissension is punishable with torture and death. Both characters enjoyed very long periods of apparent impunity as the people seemed to have been cast under the spell of docility, enduring the hardship with utter helplessness. Thus, even against the backdrop of his rapacious criminality and human rights violations, Gaddafi ruled for 42 years; Gaha unleashed his reign of terror throughout the land for twenty years. One may also draw a parallelism in the fact that the battle that led to either character's final destruction was executed by a coalition. In the case of Gaddafi, this was the handwork of the Libyan rebels and NATO Army. In the case of Gaha, the coalition comprised the soldiers of the then Aare Ona Kakanfo (i.e the Generalissimo), named Oyabi from Jabata town, a medley of army provided by aggrieved provincial kings and the insurgents within the Oyo town itself. Both tyrants also put up a sanguinary battle before being overcome. Another striking similarity is the manner of arrest of these dictators. Gaddafi was captured in his hometown of Sirte , crouching on all fours and cowering in a drainage pipe reeking with rubbish and filth, Gaa was also captured n his home crouching on all fours. How? By the time of his arrest, some of Gaha's enemies had succeeded in poisoning him, he had therefore become paralyzed and had to be assisted to sit! What about devastating humiliation before death? The accounts were very similar. Gaddafi was thoroughly humiliated; the "King-of Kings" as he called himself, was dragged, pushed, kicked and hurled to the ground. His mouth, which had hubristically issued imperious orders for 42 years, became a punching bag in the hands of rambunctious soldiers. He was tortured and eventually killed by common soldiers. Johnson's account of Gaha's last moments was as gory. Gaha was flung to the ground before Alaafin's throne, shaking and begging while Alaafin's young wives and children were poking fingers in his face, mocking him. Gaha was ridiculed tortured and roasted to death in a bonfire! Another eerie similarity between Gaddafi and Gaha- They were both killed with a number of their children some of whom still managed to escape into exile. Gaddafi who had lost three children earlier in the insurrection was killed alongside his son, Moatassem. Some of the children escaped into exile in Algeria. Gaha's case was even more brutal and revolting, most of his children were wantonly wasted, Johnson's accounts stated that his children' wives who were pregnant had their bellies savagely ripped open and the embryos hacked to pieces! Again, some of Gaha's children escaped into exile in cities like Badagry, Cotonou and Dahomey. The cogent lesson to be inferred from all this is simple- history does repeat itself many times but the tragedy is that humanity never learns. |
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