Is there a way I can connect to the MySQL server port on a local/remote machine using MySQL++ (C++ API for MySQL), and tap in on user login info, the queries posted by them, the time taken for their execution, etc., logged in as the DBA? Or is it only possible by running relevant scripts on the server side?

Sounds feasible to me. MySQL has plenty of commands you can issue to find out about slow queries, current users, memory usage etc. Learn these commands from the manual and then connect to your target machine and use the API to issue the commands necessary to retrieve the info you want. RTM