Somaliland: A tough challenge ahead

Moments after the Somali president Sheikh Sharif was elected in Djibouti, the nationalistic, shrewd and brave Somaliland politician Mr Faysal Ali Warabe (the leader of Ucid party) warned the above mentioned President not to follow in the fruitless and empty footsteps of his former colleagues. These leaders have always been dreaming of a greater Somalia. Abdikhasim Salad Hassan who was elected in Arta (republic of Djibouti) started to talk about Zeila while he had no power to visit Madina, one of the Mogadisho districts. Abdillahi Yussuf – the notorious, unlucky so called leader and the butcher of Mogadisho began to crush and kill the people of Mogadishu whilst talking about a greater Somalia.

For the past two decades the Southern “leaders” and warlords have been fighting each other, but they all shared a common denominator. This commonality was their believe that Somaliland is part of Somalia. Now everyone knows what had happened specifically in Mogadishu in the past two years as well as the whole southern part of Somalia. Solving this problem should be their priority. Therefore the people of Mogadishu should realise the facts and figures and be careful not to interfere blindly in Somaliland affairs.

We as Somalilanders congratulate Mr Sharif as the president of Somalia, but one thing should be underlined and that his mandate is to unite his own people and solve Somalia’s enormous problems. He should be different from the Arabic saying: ‘whoever marries my mother is my uncle’.

The next tough challenge awaiting the Somaliland people is the coming election which is not far from the horizon and I am worried about the power struggle within the ruling party Udub. The people of Somaliland should unite and prepare a front against those who wish us to digress, both internally and externally and we should aim to sustain Somaliland’s peace and stability.

At the same time they should not underestimate the newly elected Somali president. Time will tell what his intentions are or whether history will repeat itself.