Amid the chaos of Libya’s long-sputtering civil war, the central bank in Tripoli, the capital, has stood strong. Its red-and-white striped façade, crowned with two turquoise cupolas, a throwback to the days of Italian colonisation, were unscathed. Sadiq al-Kabir, the bank’s governor appointed after Muammar Qaddafi was toppled in 2011, survived two civil wars and six prime ministers. Libya has had two governments, parliaments, judiciaries and security regimes, but Mr Kabir, a mild-mannered bureaucrat, kept a vestige of unity, overseeing and distributing a single currency from his charming seaside bank. On August 26th Libya lost that linchpin. In a power grab, Tripoli’s prime minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, sent his militiamen into the bank and chased Mr Kabir, an erstwhile ally, into exile in Turkey. Libya’s pliant presidential council sought to appoint a replacement and a new board. “The person filling the post has no legal basis,” says Wolfram Lacher, a Libya-watcher in Berlin.
A Takeover of Africa’s Largest Foreign-exchange Reserves
