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Fall Of The ‘King Of Kings’
He was one of the world’s most ruthless heads of state. He also was one of the most outlandish. Rarely has the leader of such a small nation played such a large role on the international stage. But Moammar finally lost his invincibility as he fell to the superior fire power of NATO-backed Libyan rebel troops in his homeland, Sirte.
Gadhafi, who had weathered assassination attempts, US air strikes, and years of international sanctions, died today in the desert town of Sirte where he was born, the rebel coalition claimed.
Before there was Osama Bin Laden, there was Moammar Gadhafi. For years he was Public Enemy No. 1 in the US, feared and loathed for bankrolling terrorism and revolution around the globe.
A Newsweek cover story in 1981 branded him “the most dangerous man in the world.” To President Ronald Reagan, he was “the mad dog of the Middle East.”
And that was before his regime’s most dastardly deed of all: the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, by Libyan agents who planted explosives in a suitcase. The crash killed 270 people, most of them Americans.
And then, Gadhafi undertook an astonishing reversal. He was one of the first Arab leaders to denounce the September 11 terrorist attacks. Two years later, Libya abandoned its weapons of mass destruction programs, assumed responsibility for the Pan Am bombing and agreed to pay $2.7 billion in restitution to the families of Lockerbie victims.
The US reciprocated, resuming diplomatic relations with Tripoli and lifting economic sanctions. But while Gadhafi’s political conduct changed, his eccentric behavior did not. Across his four decades in power, he flouted all the rules for how a head of state should act.
He surrounded himself with gun-toting female bodyguards, and for years he traveled with a voluptuous Ukrainian nurse. He brought along a Bedouin tent to sleep in when he traveled abroad, and once attended a summit in Belgrade with six camels and two horses in tow. Gadhafi wore flowing robes, favored oversized sunglasses and received Botox injections.
“Can I ask you something very directly, which may seem rude?” ABC News’ Barbara Walters asked Gadhafi in a 1989 interview in Tripoli. “In our country, we read that you are unstable, we read that you are mad. Why do you think this is? … Does it make you angry?”
“Of course it irritates me,” Gadhafi replied. “Nevertheless, I do believe that a majority of the people in the four corners of the globe do love me.”
Libya was one of the world’s poorest nations when Gadhafi was born in a Bedouin tent in 1942 to illiterate parents. Young Moammar showed promise, and so he became the first member of his family to attend secondary school.
He harbored outsized ambitions even as a teenager. Enamored of Gen. Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rise to power in neighboring Egypt, Gadhafi began conspiring with high school classmates to stage a similar revolution in Libya.
In September 1969, Gadhafi lead a small band of junior military officers in a bloodless coup, toppling Libya’s pro-Western ruler, King Idris. It was an audacious move since Gadhafi was a mere army lieutenant, just 27 years old.
Initially, Gadhafi enjoyed broad support. He took no formal title, calling himself the Supreme Guide or Brotherly Leader. He created a system of government called the “Jamahiriya,” or state of the masses, which called for Libya to be governed by local councils. But there would be no collective rule.
Moammar Gadhafi’s Flamboyant Dictatorship Is Over
He transformed Libya into a dictatorship, criminalizing dissent, creating a network of informers and executing opponents. He sent hit squads to hunt down dissidents “stray dogs,” he called them — who fled to Europe and the US.
Most significantly, Gadhafi squeezed foreign oil companies to give his regime nearly 80 percent of the revenue from Libya’s vast oil fields, a model that would be duplicated by other oil-producing states. It provided Gadhafi with the resources to cause havoc around the world. Harboring a deep resentment of the West, Gadhafi financed revolutionary movements in Africa, Asia and Europe — from the I.R.A. in Northern Ireland to Islamic radicals in the Philippines. He supported Palestinian terrorism, including the Black September movement blamed in the killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Gadhafi’s conduct put him on a collision course with the United States. Soon after taking office, President Reagan severed diplomatic relations with Libya and slapped an embargo on its oil. Gadhafi upped the ante when Libyan agents orchestrated the bombing of a West Berlin disco in 1986, killing two U.S. servicemen. American warplanes bombed Gadhafi’s compound in retaliation, nearly killing the dictator.
The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 cemented Libya’s standing as a rogue state. The ensuing sanctions against him were so severe, Barbara Walters needed the State Department’s permission to visit Libya to interview Gadhafi.
Asked in that interview about Washington’s demand that he needed to “renounce international terrorism,” Gadhafi laughed. “This could be the response when someone is sponsoring terrorism, but when our official position is that we are against terrorism, such demand would be meaningless,” he said.
Gadhafi scoffed when Walters brandished a report accusing him of using surrogates to commit terrorism around the world. “What is the practical evidence, the concrete evidence?” he said. “These are all lies … only ink and paper.”
All of which made Gadhafi’s about-face after 9/11, his rejection of terrorism, even more striking. Reportedly, he shared his intelligence files on al Qaeda with the CIA., and allowed the US to use a Libyan site for the harsh interrogation of a terror suspect.
With the lifting of sanctions, US and international companies rushed into Libya to do business. World leaders like Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi paid visits.
Gadhafi and his country were pariahs no more.
Now rehabilitated, Gadhafi cast himself as a statesman, and in early 2009, he was elected to lead the African Union, a confederation of 53 nations.
But the makeover unraveled in August 2009 after Scotland freed the only person convicted in the Lockerbie bombing, a former Libyan agent named Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi. Although the release was described as a humanitarian gesture — Megrahi suffered from prostate cancer it triggered outrage in the U.S. and Britain. The outcry mushroomed when Megrahi returned to a hero’s welcome in Tripoli orchestrated by Gadhafi’s regime. Once again, Gadhafi appeared to be up to his old tricks.
Gadhafi’s ability to outrage was on full display during a subsequent visit to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Gadhafi ‘King of Kings’ No More
Introduced as “leader of the revolution, the president of the African Union, the king of kings of Africa,” Gadhafi railed and raged for 90 minutes, instead of the allotted 15. He ripped up a copy of the U.N. charter, demanded investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and compared the U.N. Security Council to al Qaeda.
But it was the Arab Spring that led to be Gadhafi’s downfall. In February 2011, the anti-government protests roiling the Arab world spread to Libya with a Day of Rage challenging his rule. More than 40 years of anger and resentment exploded in demonstrations across the country.
When the protests morphed into an uprising, Gadhafi responded with extreme force. As Gadhafi’s forces closed in on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, the UN Security Council authorized the use of force to protect civilians. And on March 19, US and European forces intervened, launching missiles and dropping bombs to assist the rebels.
The tide turned. In August, Gadhafi fled Tripoli as rebel forces closed in. After 42 years, his reign was over. But the wily leader’s whereabouts remained a mystery for months as the remnants of his security forces fought off rebels closing in on his strongholds.
At the time of his death, Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam and his chief of intelligence were wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity for the killing, wounding and imprisonment of civilians during the early stages of Libya’s uprising.
Nigeria’s crude oil production has surged to an 11-month high in May, 2026, with the country exceeding its Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) production quota.
The average crude oil production recorded during the month of May represents 102 per cent of Nigeria’s 1.5mbpd of production quota allocated by the OPEC.
The production report released by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), yesterday, disclosed that Nigeria’s oil production averages 1,530,354 barrels of crude oil and 170,446 barrels of condensates per day (bpd).
According to the report, this brings the total combined production to 1, 700, 800 barrels per day and consolidating Nigeria’s position as Africa’s largest oil producer.
The report said the production performance during the review period remained robust, with combined crude oil and condensate output ranging between a low of 1.51 million bpd and a peak of 1.86 million bpd.
It said the May 2026 production figures represented the highest recorded by Nigeria since July 2025, when output surged to 1,712,282.
“In strict crude oil terms (excluding condensates), the 1.53 million barrels recorded in May 2026 represents the highest Nigeria has witnessed since January 2025 when crude oil production hit 1.538mbpd.
“The latest crude oil production statistics thus represents a 15-month high on a month on month basis, production rose by 2.77 per cent in May 2026 as against 1.48mbpd in April,” it said.
The report said the broader production trend over the last five months had also remained positive.
It said combined crude oil and condensate output increased from 1.48 million bpd in February to 1.54 million bpd in March, 1.66 million bpd in April, and then 1.7 million bpd in May, underscoring sustained growth in Nigeria’s hydrocarbon production levels.
According to the report, among production streams, Bonny Terminal led the pack with a total blend of 293,870 bpd, closely followed by Forcados Terminal at 289,900 bpd, Qua Iboe ranked third with 173,360 bpd, while Escravos Oil Terminal contributed 135,470 bpd.
It said the Odudu (Amenam Blend) completed the top five production streams, accounting for 63,250 bpd during the month under review.
The NUPRC attributes the rise in production to a sustained positive momentum as operations remained stable throughout the reporting period with no significant pipeline or facility outages recorded.
Additionally, all previously scheduled turnaround maintenance activities had been successfully completed, contributing to improved operational reliability and production efficiency.
The House of Representatives, yesterday passed a landmark constitutional amendment bill to establish state police nationwide, marking a significant milestone in Nigeria’s decades-long debate over decentralising policing and strengthening internal security.
The bill, titled “A Bill for an Act to Alter the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 to Provide for the Establishment of State Police and for Related Matters (Sixth Alteration) Bill, 2026,” was approved during consideration at the Committee of the Whole, presided over by Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas.
Voting commenced after the Deputy Speaker and Chairman of the House Committee on Constitution Review, Hon. Benjamin Kalu, presented the report on the proposal and canvassed support from lawmakers, stressing the need for a more decentralised policing framework to effectively address the country’s growing security challenges.
The exercise was conducted manually, with members raising their hands to indicate their positions. At the end of the voting, 289 lawmakers voted in support of the bill, one member abstained, while none voted against it, reflecting overwhelming bipartisan backing for the far-reaching reform.
The proposed amendment seeks to fundamentally restructure Nigeria’s policing architecture by creating both Federal and State Police formations.
One of the bill’s key provisions amends Section 214 of the 1999 Constitution to formally establish the Federal Police and the State Police. Under the proposal, the National Assembly would be empowered to prescribe the structure, organisation, administration and powers of the Federal Police, while also providing the legal framework and minimum standards for the establishment and operation of state police services.
The bill stipulates that no state police formation shall commence operations unless it is established by a law enacted by the relevant State House of Assembly and certified as complying with national minimum standards prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly.
It further provides that until a state police force becomes operational, the Federal Police shall continue to exercise policing powers and responsibilities within such states.
In a bid to preserve the autonomy of state police formations and prevent undue federal interference, the bill limits federal intervention in states’ internal security affairs. Under the proposal, the Federal Police may intervene only where there is a complete breakdown of law and order, upon the request of a governor or where a state police force becomes unable to function due to administrative, financial or other operational challenges.
The amendment also proposes significant changes to the police’s appointment and command structure.
Under the amended Section 215 of the Constitution, the Inspector-General of Police would be appointed by the President on the advice of the Nigeria Police Council from among serving members of the Federal Police, subject to confirmation by the National Assembly.
Similarly, a State Commissioner of Police would be appointed by a governor on the advice of the Nigeria Police Council from among serving officers of the State Police, subject to confirmation by the respective State House of Assembly.
The bill empowers governors to issue lawful directives to State Commissioners of Police on matters relating to public safety and the maintenance of law and order. However, where a commissioner considers such directives unlawful or inconsistent with accepted policing standards, the matter may be referred to the Nigeria Police Council, whose decision shall be final.
The proposal also amends Section 84 of the Constitution by replacing references to the “National Police Council and the Federal Police Service Commission” with the “Nigeria Police Council and the Police Service Commission.”
The passage of the bill by the House represents one of the most far-reaching security reforms contemplated since the return to democratic rule in 1999 and is expected to rekindle nationwide debate on issues relating to funding, accountability, operational control and safeguards against abuse.
With the House’s approval, the constitutional amendment bill will now proceed to the Senate for concurrence. Thereafter, it must secure the endorsement of at least two-thirds of the State Houses of Assembly and receive presidential assent before becoming part of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
If eventually enacted, the legislation would usher in a new era of multi-layered policing in Nigeria and could redefine the country’s approach to tackling banditry, terrorism, kidnapping and other forms of violent crimes through a more localised security architecture.
The Federal Government has declared today, public holiday to commemorate Nigeria’s 27 years of unbroken democratic rule.
This is contained in a statement in Abuja, by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior, Magdalene Ajani.
Ajani said that the Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, made the declaration on behalf of the federal government.
Tunji-Ojo reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to the preservation of democratic ideals, rule of law, transparency, accountability and inclusive governance.
He assured that the ministry in collaboration with relevant security agencies woulsd continue to take appropriate measures in maintaining and strengthening Nigeria’s internal security.
The minister noted that a secured and stable environment was essential to democracy and national development.
He urged Nigerians to see the holiday as an opportunity for civic reflection.
“As we mark this historic day, every Nigerian is encouraged to remain law-abiding, uphold the institutions that sustain our democracy, and remember that the strength of any democracy lies ultimately in the character of its citizens,” he said.
He also said that June 12 every year remained a significant day in Nigeria’s history in honour of the courage, resilience and sacrifices of Nigerians whose efforts made democratic governance possible.
“Their legacies continue to inform the values and responsibilities of the Nigerian state,”Tunji-Ojo added.
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