SOMALIA: An Open letter to the Presidential hopeful Mr. Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame

An Open letter to the Presidential hopeful Mr. Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame
Said faadi
faadi79@hotmail.com
July 12 2012

OPINION

Sir, Thank you very much for your clarification of the terms in the tragic MoU between Kenya and Somalia over the controversial deal of the continental shelve. But sir, your clarification has gained little of its objectives. It, in instead, raised eyebrows at the boarder public sphere.

Let me remind you global phenomena, Sir. They said, a rumour is never believed until it is officially denied. It is even more so because rumours in the street chatting had it that you have sold our ‘sea’ to foreigners.

Sir, your dispatch was full of half-truth and misleading falsehood. It looked a desperate effort out of frustration. From the look of things, you are desperately trying to portray yourself ‘Mr Cleam’ to make a dramatic come back to the politics.

Not bad, Sir, but you have embarked on a wrong strategy. What do I mean? As I learned fellow, you know more than anyone else how to cast‘slanted’ allegation off. A competent lawyer does not seek justice from the public domain with a press release. They instead secure certificates of conduct from the courts.

Sir, I don’t want to scour salt on your wounds, you already got enough whoops. I am writing to you to give you my sincere, but unsolicited advice. They said, a guilty conscience does not need an accuser. And that is why I don’t want to remind you the tragic memories of April 6, 2009. The day you appended your signature on the controversial MoU. The day that threw your political career into the oblivion.

Sir, I believe whoever advised you to write this letter, had malicious intent. The mysterious press release has suggested many critical issues that called your intelligence into question. You literally confessed in your dispatch that you didn’t know what you have signed.

As a learned fellow, how could you make such blander? With the absence of technical interrogation, your revelations voluntarily suggested many questions than answers. And the following are some of the begging questions.

To start with, what evidence did the Prime Minister show you that he has consulted with legal experts? With no proof, how could you explain this in front of competent judge, that the ‘Prime Minister told that he consulted a mysterious person in The Hague? Where were the legal advisors of the government – the Attorney General and his team? What was the role of the Norwegians, when everyone knows that Norwegian oil companies were engaged in oil exploration activities in and around the areas under question? Why did they choose you to sign the MoU that you claim to have been absent when its terms where negotiated? Why ‘you’ and not the Ministers it directly concerned – Minister of foreign affairs and Minister for Fisheries and Natural Resources? Are you telling us that they don’t know how to sign MoUs, yet they are both PhD holders? Why did the PM or our airborne President declined to sign it by themselves? Who gave Kenya the powers to unilaterally draft the MoU and dictate its terms? Who represented Somalia during the MoU drafting process? Who did they consult with? Why did Vice President Kolonzo Misyoka of Kenya – the co-signer – take a deep breath and asked his assistants to throw some bottles of Champaign in the fridge to posture victory, when you blinded appended your signature on the MoU, yet it marked a dark day back home? You mentioned that there was a “deadline” to meet, who has the authority to put a gun on the head of sovereign state and tell it, either, or? Who on earth?

Sir, what you said is preposterous and hooey. To be honest with you, it caused more harm than healing. But don’t worry; I have two suggestions for you, Sir.

First, if any truth goes by what you said in your press release, you are an ingenious man who is politically ‘fixed’. What do I mean? You are a victim of political conspiracy. Malicious forces have planned to finish you politically. They have assassinated you through a genius and well-orchestrated political masterstroke.

Metaphorically speaking, Mr. president-in-the-waiting, they gave you a gun and instructed you to shoot yourself. Surprisingly, you did not ask, why? You willingly shot yourself on the foot. In this, you become a“branded traitor”. That is why you became the most obnoxious and infamous figure in the post-civil-war politics of Somalia. They said “adversity does not build a character, it reveals it”. Your rise to the corridors of power and national politics was disgracefully pre-empted.

Sir, the damage is already done. It is now a forgone perception in the public domain that you have sold our “sea” to Kenya. It is too late for you, to put the toothpaste back into the tube. But this does not mean that you can’t fight back to redeem your lost glory.

Sir, my first suggestion for you is a strategy that is quite puzzling. It demands you to be a fearless and valiant chap. You will need to sink political giants to get you pane clean. It requires you to put your power ambitions aside, at least for now, and prepare for a bitter war.

You should clear the air by telling the whole world, what exactly happened! You must give the names of the main actors in the appalling farce. It would be thrilling to know the role of the Sheriffs and the former Premier Omer Abdirashid Ali in the saga.

In this, you will be with us, your fellow compatriots, and against the evil powers-that-be. In the language of the courts, you will be a‘suspect-turned – persecution-witness’ in a classic scenario of friends turning foes.

After all, these myopic goons have utter contempt for your integrity and intelligence. How on earth, could they think of leaving you alone with this burden of long-standing and substantial scandal – tainted and tortured? You should sink the whole ship to punish everyone that involved ‘it’.If big heads don’t roll before August 20,2012, then you deserve what they have done to you. To be precise, you are not man enough.

But let me guarantee you for an incentive. If you accomplish this “Mission impossible”, Somalis world over will forgive you but will never forget ‘them’. Just help us get the bottom of the story.

My second suggestion for you is more pragmatic. I argue you stop pretending and feel at home with the doyens of impunity. As they say, you are who you are, no matter how much you pretend to be different.

Sir, you need to appreciate your environment and the arena you are in to contest. This is Somalia – a political environment full of painful betrayals and broken promises. Everyone is traitor in one way or another. That is why I believe you don’t have to waste your time with inconsequential Press releases.

What is my point? Ignore the guilty conscience that is tormenting you – get over it. Convince yourself that what you have done was a trivia in the context of Somalia. If your soul refuses to retreat, take it around for a tour.

Start your picnic from Hargaysa. The heinous crimes committed by Somaliland militia loyal to President Silanyo in Buhodle and Sool over past one year or so have filled a large space of the Human Rights Watchdog’s records. President Farole of Puntland’s barbaric attack of the parliament in 2005 is freshly lingering the heads of many.

President Sharif of TFG mobilized twenty thousand secondary and university student against AMISOM and Ethiopian troops in 2006, only to cohabit the same as president. 80% of those innocent teenagers were either killed or permanently maimed in the senseless war. His frequent visits to Addis Ababa and his calls for unprecedented Jihad – holly war – against the TFG and its Ethiopian allays in 2006 – which was inspired by a fusion of tribal jingoism and crude Taliban ideologies – are irreconcilable tragic reminiscent. If this is not a betrayal, what a treachery and treason mean in Somalia is beyond me.

Allow me to explain my point with a school age poem. The interaction of the political actors in Somalia can be best described by Maxwell’s poem of the pot calling the kettle black. And it goes like this:

“ Ooh said the pot to the kettle; you are dirty, ugly and black; Sure no one would think you were metal; Except you are given a crack!………… Not so! Not so! The kettle said to the pot; This is you dirty image you see; For I am so clean without blemish and blot; That is your blackness mirrored in me” .

Lastly, Sir, in our tribal politics, issues of competence, leadership qualities, vision and integrity are alien to it. You just need to have deep pockets and good understand of the calculus of the corrosive tribal arithmetic.

In which, I believe, you have got all it takes, Sir. I say so with confidence, because the proof of a fat kickback in the D-day is the profligate presidential bid. With this easy cash, the votes of the voracious tribal MPs are up for easy grabs within your reach.

Soldier on, Sir, and become our next President.

By Said Faadi

The author is a topical commentator

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