Hargeisa (PP Report) — A senior journalist in Hargeisa criticised septuagenarian and octogenarian politicians of the Somaliland administration for being out of contact with the political realities of the Horn of Africa. “They pursued a quixotic secessionist struggle within the North, solely to underscore the presence of a powerful unionist constituency in what was as soon as often called the ex-British Somaliland,” mentioned the journalist.
The Somaliland administration had been banking on robust assist from Mogadishu elites, who entertained North-South dialogue as a way to isolate Puntland State of Somalia. Muse Bihi Abdi, the previous President of Somaliland administration, realised that Mogadishu seen the secessionist administration as being in a weaker place after the Goja’dde defeat. As a face-saving measure, Bihi agreed to a swiftly organized summit in Djibouti to revive previous Mogadishu-Hargeisa agreements. He leveraged the clause on the “non-politicisation of support” as a stepping stone to signing a maritime Memorandum of Understanding with Ethiopia, in an try and grant the landlocked nation a naval base.
The maritime MoU underscored Bihi’s wiliness, as he inadvertently triggered a geopolitical disaster that gave Egypt a a lot sought-after foothold in Somalia. Ethiopia was ultimately compelled to withdraw from the MoU after intense diplomatic strain from Somalia.
President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, Bihi’s successor, has treaded fastidiously, regardless of feedback from his international minister, who implied in an interview with an Israeli radio station that the Somaliland administration would think about resettling Palestinians within the territories in North Somalia.”
In contrast to Mogadishu, which underwent an abrupt generational shift following the Union of Islamic Courts’ defeat of a coalition of warlords funded by the US — paving the best way for the emergence of a quasi-religious political class in 2006 — Hargeisa stays unable to disentangle itself from the grip of political leaders who labored with the pre-1991 army regime and the Somali Nationwide Motion (SNM), the previous armed opposition to the regime. “The incumbent president of Somaliland was a senior diplomat within the Somali authorities earlier than 1991; his predecessor was a colonel within the Somali military and later a senior member of the SNM, which he joined after defecting within the early Eighties; and the speaker of the Elders’ Council, Saleban Mohamud Adam, had served as a deputy training minister within the Somali authorities earlier than becoming a member of the SNM within the late Eighties” a researcher in Hargeisa informed Puntland Publish.
Even in Puntland State of Somalia, a discernible generational shift has taken place, with the vanguard leaders who based Puntland being changed by a brand new era of politicians.
Secessionist arguments, typically primarily based on legally indefensible claims—such because the inviolability of colonial borders underneath the African Union Constitution—fail to carry weight when measured in opposition to the sound authorized rules upon which the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Somalia rests. “The ageing politicians of the Somaliland administration shouldn’t burden the youthful era with fatuous political commitments that undermine the political and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia” the researcher mentioned.
© Puntland Publish, 2025
