Mogadishu (PP Editorial) — The Somalia Auditor General Ahmed Isse Gutaale claimed today that money generated from the alleged sale of two former Somali National Army barracks in Galka’yo had been invested in the construction of Garacad Port in North Mudug. Guutaale lives in the capital city where members of his subclan have since 1991 been occupying public and private properties. The history of 1991 Mogadishu can be summed as a politically motivated dispossession of citizens by clan militias mobilised in the name of United Somali Congress.
Guutaale’s proper title should have been the Theft Protector General of Somalia. A whole generation of Somalis in Mogadishu has come of age living in stolen properties and in a capital city where a new u dhashay (belonging to by dint of maintaining armed clan militias) mantra rather than ku dhashay (born in) reigns, where u dhashay is based on the dispossession narrative of USC.
As professor Abdi Ismail Samatar told a Minnesota-based Somali TV station recently, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, then a Presidential Candidate in 2021, said to Samatar:” Don’t insult my city”. This flippant response was triggered by Samatar’s comment on the state of Mogadishu streets when the Professor’s entourage was travelling to President Hassan’s residence.
What we have in Somalia is a federal government that is ideologically defending the legacy of dispossession and man-made famines of the 1990s. The moral vacuum is made worse by the silence of the Mogadishu clergy known as the Council of Religious Men who come across as indifferent to the plight of Somalis whose properties have been dispossessed by subclans who claim Mogadishu to be their stronghold. More than 90% of government buildings (schools/ neighbourhood offices, military barracks, fairgrounds, etc) are occupied by people protected by their powerful clan militias. A little introspection could have prevented the so-called auditor general from making absurd claims about Garacad Port.
People of Puntland State of Somalia have been far too long patient in the hope of seeing a new generation of politicians from Mogadishu who could rise above the dark history of 1990s and honour the property rights of Somali citizens whom USC militias dispossessed after the fall of the military regime in 1991. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is taking steps to revive the 1990s civil war. He forgets who will be judged on how he secures the confidence of his fellow citizens. If he interprets his presidential duties as an opportunity to enrich his hangers-on and protect ill-gotten gains, he will be remembered as a leader far worse than the 1990s looters who reduced Mogadishu to fiefdoms of armed clan militias.
© Puntland Post, 2023
