With the final leg of Puntland municipal elections concluded today, Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, Secretary General of Somali Journalists’ Syndicate (SJS), asks President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, “Do you not have any shame to at least apologize to this girl who casted her vote today peacefully and to the people of Puntland?”
But what does President Hassan Sheikh, the leader of the nation, has to apologize for? In May 2023, during the Puntland democratization process, when Puntland mandated one-person, one-vote process, President Hassan Sheikh from the minbar of the holy Villa Somalia mosque, in a Friday Prayer sermon speaking to the nation from the pully pulpit, threatened that if Puntland proceeded with the democratization process, the 24 year old state will disintegrate within 24 days or perhaps within 24 hours. No one could believe that such a threatening statement could come from the President of the nation. But come it did, and the president meant every word he uttered.
The President then followed up his threats with funding and a pay-to-play support for the armed opposition groups in Garoowe, mainly the Aaranjaan group and General Asad Dayaano’s armed militias. However, both groups failed to foil the Puntland democratization process, and today Puntland elections have been successfully concluded. However, the people of Puntland have suffered. They suffered death, injuries and property damage and destruction. And there has been no accountability as of yet.
Accountability and apologies aside, President Hassan Sheikh, as reward for a job well-done, paid Aaranjaan $3.5 million and appointed MP Ali Yusuf (Ali Hoosh) Minister of Interior. FGS MP Ali Hosh is the second man in command of the notorious Aaranjaan group.
General Asad Osman Dayaano and his militia haven’t yet had it as good as Aaranjaan and MP Ali Hosh, as he still awaits his reward and lives on hope, the hope that someday he will be appointed to something, perhaps the Chief of the Somali Police.
As Abdisaid Ali Muse, Chairperson of Lomè Security and Peace Forum and previously former Somalia Foreign Minister and National Security Advisor, wrote earlier today about the paradox of the Somali politician, “The Somali political leaders aren’t necessarily bad people, but they’re extremely weak individuals and are easily manipulated. They’ve no humanity, morals and values that’s the main reason they’re willingly participating in the destruction of their society and country.”
With President Hassan Sheikh at the helm, and everyone around him committed to his “belly and personal interests,” MP Ali Hosh and General Asad Dayaano having failed their old assignment to scuttle Puntland democratic process now have a new responsibility – derail the Garad Port Project and the Gara’ad-Galkayo-Galdogob (3G) Road Corridor, Africa’s largest and the only public-private initiative.
Of course, they will once again fail and fail miserably, but with such leadership the national decay never ceases to end as appointments, promotions, and promises of more pay-to-play come with promises of more destruction and disintegration. They compete on who can destroy more than the other.
With such leadership and acquiescing clan-supported-politicians, expect more lies, more false promises, more hypocrisy, more disingenuous wars against al-Shabaab, more genuine wars against their fellow citizens, and more destruction and disintegration for the nation.
Perhaps, at the least, our leaders are a mere reflection of the society they lead.
Daljir Media
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