By Ahmed Khalif
Somalia’s presidential and its bicameral legislative elections, which were to be held in August, are expected to take place by the end of October. Regional and tribal elders will elect/select their representatives in both legislative chambers for the next four years. Then, the newly installed legislators will elect on the president in accordance with the depth of candidates’ pockets. The future of Somalia, however, conclusively hangs on this election and the type of leaders elected will decide which direction Somalia heads to: hell or heaven.
The legislative candidates are innumerable and hordes of presidential candidates have announced their me-too-ism candidacy. However, the final criterion will be based on the size of the purse of the candidate, usually the size of the coffers of his/her foreign state sponsor. Among those, so far, who have announced their candidacy are the incumbent president, Hassan Sh. Mohamud, who, as the story went, was put into power in the last election by a mysterious Qatari sponsor. In his four year term, Mr. Mohamud was preoccupied with hoarding wealth; he is a myopic tribalist who, instead of bringing the Somali people together, drove a bigger wedge between them. His leadership of the country took two steps backward for every step, if any, that it took forward.
The former President, Sh. Sharif Sh. Ahmed, his Prime Minister Omar A. Sharmake, and his Minister for Planing and International Cooperations, Abdirahman Abdishakur, all are preposterously presidential candidates. These troika were the signatories of the controversial memorandum of understanding (MoU) that put Somalia’s legal Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) marine territory into depute with Kenya. That case is currently before The International Court of Justice in Hague for arbitrations. In the eyes of Somalis, those three are traitors who should be put on the gallows for haute trahison, instead, due to lack of proper judicial system and independent judiciary, they are boastfully flaunting their loots and seek a second chance to probably sell the whole flora and fauna of this country.
The worst of those traitors vying for Somalia’s leadership is Sharif Hassan Sh. Aden, the former speaker of the Federal Parliament, and the current President of South-West State of Somalia. Mr. Aden is infamously known, among many Somalis, as ‘Sakiin,’” the backstabber. This man is a real Judas to whom Somalia isn’t worth three silver coins. Thus, Somalis should avoid handing any power in his hands and at any cost.
One aspect in which Somalia is a unique country is that the stealing of public property doesn’t bring shame upon its politicians. The embezzlers, instead of getting prosecuted, earn praises. In the corruption-replete Somali politics, like the Somali proverbial justice monkey, with whom the cats trusted to equally divide a meat between them, but then in the weighing process, ate all the meat by biting off the heavier of the weigh scales each time. The insatiable political leaders alone live off the fat of the land in front of their impoverished compatriots.
Tribalism-plagued Somali people either commend or condemn these looters depending on how they are related to. It is like in Orwell’s allegorical novel, Animal Farm, “all four-legged animals are good and all two-legged animals are bad” clause in the constitution of the Beasts of England. Somalis invariably sing the praises of the pillagers to whom they belong with the same tribe and denounce the others. Consequently, the country’s meagre resources are spent at whim by its leaders who then, to add insult to injury, unashamedly flaunt their spoils in front of the famished people who had entrusted power with them. That is the reason why those nefarious traitors who probably would be led to the gallows in any other country, dared seeking to buy the highest office in the country with the money which they had embezzled from the public.
The birth of the Somalia Republic – the unification of the South (Italian Somaliland) and the North (British Somaliland) of Somalia – it is said, was catalyzed by Britain’s handing over Haud and Reserve Area to Ethiopia in 1954, the Britain’s illegal action caused a public outcry and it became an eye opener for Somalis. Eventually, the result of that action hastened the reunification of the north and the south of Somalia.
Somalis are known to take no foreign aggression, and when they feel foreign threat against their country, they put their differences aside and coalesce into unconquerable defensive forces. Kenya’s ongoing brazen land-grab in the Somali territories unearthed its hidden agendas in Somalia. Kenya has inadvertently awakened a sleeping giant, and this was exactly what Ethiopia wanted to avoid when it had warned Kenya against sending its military forces into Somalia. The Somalia-Kenya marine dispute case in Hague – like the Haud and Reserve Area handover did in 1954 – has revitalized and imbued Somali nationalism with new life. The only virtue in this case is that hopefully it will open the eyes for the Somalis and unite them once again to defend their birthrights.
In Somalia, there is an obvious deficiency of good leadership. If there are any good leaders, they lack money to buy out he corrupt parliamentarians who are only there to fatten their accounts. It is why those unconscionable, foreign-sponsored politicians, are the starters in the Somali politics, while the country’s real scrupulous sons and daughters are languishing on the backbench.
That culture of sellout parliamentarians must end now. The change must, to straighten the tree when it’s a twig, be from the bottom; from the grassroots. The regional and traditional leaders have to send men and women with leadership qualities and unquestionable honesty and ethics (KARTI iyo HUFNAAN ) to the federal parliament. These people will in turn elect a good president who also in turn will institute good governance.
Somali people are ripe for reconciliation, are ready to let bygones be bygones, and save their country from annihilation. People are pining for a leadership that can bring them together, but it is clear now that the incumbent president has definitely failed in that task.
Somalia’s chance for survival, however, hinges squarely on the leader it elects in the forthcoming election, in October 2016, but if any of those unscrupulous, loot-dangling, get-rich-quick politicians mentioned above are elected, Somalia itself is a bygone.
Ahmed Khalif
Email: [email protected]
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