The new mission of the Farmajo governemnt is teetering in a dangerous political zone. And he does not even realize it.
He replaced the top leadership of Southwest by sheer corruption – that is directly paying cash to mostly less educated clan representatives to direct votes to his handpicked candidate. This was done in the open.
He repeated a similar process in Galmudug. About 4 months ago, a friend informed me that Haaf was willing to accept a financial offer and leave his post. That did not work inititially. However, after a serious pressure and possibly cash incentive, the hethrto hard nut of Haaf is showing signs to crack.
JUBBALAND is the last battleground. Many beleive that Ahmed Islam, with all his short comings is: (1) more patriotic than Farmajo, Khayre, and their fans at Villa Somalia combined; (2) Ahmed Islam paid a huge price in the struggle to liberate Jubbaland, and (3), he is one of the more sensible post-civil war Somalia.
None of the guys that want to overthrow Ahmed Islam was in the arena when Somalia was struggling to find its center.
Without naming names, starting from Farmajo, Khayre, and Deputy PM, none of them was in the struggle when Somalia was in a bad shape, starting from 1990 and thereafter.
What credentials do they claim to have the mandate to overthrow regional leaders at will and instal their puppets? Why do they feel so free to circumvent the constitution? Is not this the same group that handed Qalbi Dhagax to Ethiopia and then turned around to sell themselves as “patriotes?”
More and more Somalis see Farmajo as a naive but a dangerous autocrat in the making. He may even reinvent the past painful history.
Good governance is more of a process than a product. In other sense, following the constitutional process is more in line with the goals of good governance and rebuilding a viable Somali state than Farmajo saying “I replaced President X and gave you President Y.”
That is dictatorship and we have seen the bitter fruits of dictatorship.
Don’t please submerge Somalia into a second quagmire.
Faisal Roble
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