Everyone lately seems to be blaming President Hassan Sheikh, but the President keeps telling them no. They seem not to be listening to his unspoken words. If anyone is willing to listen, President Hassan Sheikh has spoken loud and clear. He spoke when SSC-Khatumo handed a devastating defeat to separatist Somaliland. He has spoken when he invited a defeated and desperate separatist who couldn’t hold his head high up to Djibouti as an equal. The President has spoken loud and clear when he deliberately ignored the cries of the people of Awdal and their pleas for the President to nominate an interim administration for Awdal State. Similar to SSC before liberation, the President continuously ignores the pleas of the people of Awdal who under the gun of the separatists, the same separatists who signed away the nation’s Red Sea coast to Ethiopia,
And given all of that, still everyone ignores that President Hassan Sheikh has already cleaned key Awdal Ministers from his cabinet. For the first time since 4.5 became the law of the land, the people of Awdal have no Minister in the President’s cabinet, no more Finance or Foreign Minister from Awdal. This isn’t by accident but by design. Take a wild guess who is filling the Awdalite positions?
Now back to President Hassan Sheikh’s favorite minister. MP Maareeye is first on the list and he doesn’t shy away from being a separatist; he says it loud, and he is proud of it. Surprisingly, he is still a Federal Government of Somalia member of parliament with good standing.
Inside the halls of Somalia’s Parliament, MP Maareeye advocates for Somaliland secession, and surprisingly, he is never admonished for his treasonous stand and separatism advocacy by either his colleagues or by the President of Somalia. Instead of being admonished, President Hassan Sheikh promoted MP Maareeye to his Minister of Agriculture.
MP Maareeye also doesn’t shy away from claiming that SSC-Khatumo is still part of separatist Somaliland, and he has been very angry about whatever little contact Villa Somalia so far had with SSC. So, why is President Hassan Sheikh so keen to reward separatists and less so with the unionists SSC-Khatumo and Awdal State?
The answer without hesitation, if anyone is willing to listen, is that President Hassan Sheikh really doesn’t care about unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia. For him, those words don’t mean a thing and are for performance only, or as the Somali proverb says, “Qowda maqashii waxna ha u qaban (Just make loud noises without substance).”
After one month of Ethiopian aggression and daily insults and transgressions by Ethiopia’s Ambassador against the Somali people and the Somali nation, President Hassan Sheikh has yet to take a single decisive step to either expel Ethiopia’s Ambassador or prepare the people of Awdal for what may come next. And don’t expect much from President Hassan Sheikh.
If anyone is willing to listen, the President has already spoken, and to add insult to injury, he promoted MP Maareeye, a man who, for all intents and purposes, is pleased with the President’s performance. As they say, “Birds of a feather flock together.”
And as the old adage goes, “a man is known by the company he keeps.” So, why is everyone blaming President Hassan Sheikh if he made his position so clear for all to see and hear?
Is anyone willing to listen now?
Daljir Media | Contributed to by Daljir News Staff in Garoowe and Nairobi
COMMENTS