Gaddafi in diplomatic row over airport guns
Nigerian authorities prevented dozens of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s heavily armed bodyguards from entering the country with weapons in a dispute that lasted hours and saw Gaddafi storm away from the airport on foot.
He arrived in Abuja today for an African Union summit with an entourage of more than 200 bodyguards who insisted on taking their weapons into the city, Aviation Minister Femi Fani-Kayode said.
“There is a certain number of weapons that any visiting head of state should bring into a country, and that is the norm all over the world,” he said. “It was discovered by security agents that the Libyans had well over that.”
The Libyans refused to register or surrender the weapons, causing an impasse that was only resolved with the chance arrival of Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo, who insisted Gaddafi’s bodyguards must comply with Nigerian regulations, the minister said.
Obasanjo was on his way to an official engagement in Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, officials said. In the end, Gaddafi’s guards were allowed to carry just eight pistols, Fani-Kayode said.
