Abdillahi Geeljire and his weekly satirical, albeit polemical, dialogue he writes from Canada is now widely read on various websites and Haatuf newspaper in Somaliland. Geeljire craftily presents his piece in the form of a conversation between his two main antagonists, Dube and Dolaal.

The setting is a Merfrish where Dube and Dolaal frequent in the afternoons to socialize by chewing the narcotic leaves of Kat.

Dolaal supports the goverment and defends it by questioning Dube on his two cents. He paints the picture of a man who is satisfied with the direction things political are going in Somaliland.  

In contrast, Dube represents the political opposition and always finds fault with the government, questioning its motives in every move. He is very incisive in his analysis of the political developments on the ground in Somaliland. 

The piece is highly entertaining and informative. But the story does not stop there.

To appreciate the piece more, let us look at the writer.

Mr. Geeljire is a very educated man who is originally from Hargeisa. Like many individuals in positions of power in Somaliland, Mr. Geeljire lived long years of exile in Canada. He was among droves of exiles who flew all the way from Europe and north America to live the 'Somaliland dream' after peace returned to the area.

The prolonged civil wars and poverty in Somalia forced great number of Somalis to seek asylum in Europe and North America.  Many of these exiles failed to fully integrate into their host countries because of cultural barriers, discrimination, lack of enterprise and sheer laziness, perhaps, on their part. As a result many work in menial jobs or live off the unemployment and other welfare schemes in their host countries.

When multiparty election was introduced in Somaliland, many returned home to join the newly established political parties and participate in the government.

When Mr. Geeljire arrived in Hargeisa, he joined UDUB political party and become one of its greatest campaigners and party activist.  He was one of the luminaries who were responsible for election of the incumbent president of Somaliland, Mr. Riyaale. Mr. Geelire remained as one of the favorite sons of UDUB until the parliamentary elections of May 2005 in Somaliland.

When the parliamentary election approached, Mr. Geeljire hoped, with a good reason, that UDUB will return the favor and include him in their party candidate lists. However, as they say it all politics is local and Mr.Geeljire failed to realize this in time.

As we remember, in the last and the only parliamentary election in Somaliland,  submission  of candidates to political parties was the responsibility of the tribes of the respective candidates.  This was the case because the people in the country vote on the basis of tribal allegiances more than anything else. Abdillahi Geeljire failed, unfortunately, to win the ticket of his tribe. For reasons known only to themselves, they selected a fresh face from Bristol as their candidate in UDUB and give Mr. Geeljire the boot.

Soon after, Geeljire joined the opposition political party KULMIYE. That is when he started to play 'DUBE' and saw evil in every move of the UDUB-led government in Somaliland.

I enjoy reading Mr.Geeljire's weekly Daljire dispatch, but always with a pinch of salt.

Last Saturday was a day of chaos along the road to Hargeisa airport. It has been like this whenever the president of Somaliland was traveling abroad for quite sometime (see may piece on this topic at http://somalilandpolitics.blogspot.com).

There were long lines of policeman and plain clothed officers along the entire road from the presidential place to the airport. Technicals and armored military cars lurked in the shadows of residential homes and every road junction all the way to the airport.  The blaring of horns of presidential entourage and the numerous forerunning decoy vehicles was deafening, creating a real noise pollution in the city.

President Riyaale seems today to be a man who is afraid of his shadows.

One can assume that Mr. Riyaale, who hails from the Gadabursi clan in the western parts of Somaliland, is afraid that he may become a 'dead donkey', as they say it here, as a result of an assassination from the more dominant Issaaq clans. 

What Mr.Riyaale is overlooking, however, is the fact that he did not came to power through the barrel of the gun (like the former president of Somali Siyad Barre) but by a popular vote for his UDUB political party. Mr. Riyaale is also overlooking the fact that the majority of the votes he received during the elections came from the Issaaqs, without which he would not have dreamed ever of becoming the president of an Issaaq dominated republic.

It is high time that Mr.Riyaale came to his senses and behaves like a civilian president voted for by the majority of his people in Somaliland, rather that a military junta strongman ruling from atop armored tank.

When ever I  read of some SNM oldies like Muse Bihi accusing the goverment of corruption or something, I really feel very disturbed.

Muse and his company  of  old SNM fighters were the ones who laid the basis of corruption, mismanagment  and bad governance in Somaliland.

What else can I say here?

It is my sincere advice to Muse and his SNM oldies to take a leaf from politicians in developed countries, who retire early from politics when it fails them.

Anyways, many of these SNM oldies were not politically smart in the first place.  Military science, rather,was their forte.

Will the heroic SNM fighters be kind to us, normal folks, and rest in peace?

Xussien Ali Dualle (Awil) never ceases to amuse me! His latest press conference was very interesting in several ways. It was full of historical facts, personal slander and blatant propaganda against his political rivals.

Awil indeed was a bit truthful about the political development of Somaliland and the internal politicking of the various Issaq tribes since 1960. No one can deny the political culture of the Issaqs with respect to their attitude to political incumbents in a given time in the country. What ex-presidents of Somaliland, Mohamed Ibrahim Egal and Abdirahman Ahmed Ali, undergone in the hands of opposing coalition of Issaq tribes can hardly be overstated.  In this connection, Awil seems to have put those facts in a historical perspective. The Issaq tribes never learned of how to respect their leaders and statesmen.  Political leaders are viewed as representatives and protectors, solely, of the interests of their antagonist tribes.

Awil talked about the SNM oldies like Muse Bihi and Mohamed Kahin and reminded them again of their political miscalculations and tribalistic tendencies. Both of these oldies are known for their erratic statements in the past and their spear-heading roles in the terrible civil wars of Somaliland in 1991-1997.

In the press coference, Awil also suggested to Ahmed Silanyo, the chairman of Kulmiye party, that they should both, i.e. Awil and Silanyo, retire from politics; a suggestion that Silanyo is unlikely to heed given his steadfast belief that he is the next PRESIDENT of Somaliland.

Awil also threatened Dr. Gaboose of Qaran 'party' with an exile if he insists on his unregistered newly established political party (Qaran). He reminded Dr. Gaboose of the fact that he was responsible for putting the first president of Somaliland, Abdirahman Ahmed Ali, on a plane to Mogadishu, while at the same time obstructing him to briefly meet with President Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, the second president of Somaliland.

O my, politics in Somaliland would have been very boring indeed without people like Awil!!!

Few days ago, one of the neurological specialist doctors in Somaliland, Dr. Mohamed Abdi Gaboose  along with  SNM veteran, Eng. Mohamed Hashi, declared the formation of a new political party, Qaran.

Dr. Gaboose, who was the special doctor of his maternal uncle, the deceased president Siyad Bare of Somalia, is widely known in Somaliland for his dictatorial behavior and his thick headed pursuits of political power at any cost.

 In the municipal local elections held in Somaliland in 2002, Dr. Gaboose was the head of  Sahan political party, which failed to make into the final selection of the three constitutional parties in Somaliland (see my comments of Sahan at http://somalilandpolitics.blogspot.com). Dr. Gaboose joined UDUB immediately after the demise of his political party, but soon changed colors with the political developments on the ground.

Dr. Gaboose runs a clinic, where he treats patients with neurological diseases at prohibitive cost , compared to other medical clinics in Hargeisa.

On the other hand, Eng Hashi is a die hard SNM veteran, who is synonymous with political failure in Somaliland. Eng. Hashi time and again to fails to adapt to the cruel and throat cutting local politicking in Somaliland. Eng. Hashi is also known for his proclivity for oppositional side of politics.

Eng. Hashi once stood for the presidency in 1997 constitutional conference in Hargeisa , where he famously won two votes out of the 315 delegates present and voting.

Both Gaboose and Hashi held ministerial postions in prevoius Somaliland goverments in short periods, with nothing to show for during thier tenure of office.

Now, what value will those two guys add to the political system in Somaliland, even if their political party is legalized, which is difficult to foresee anyways?

When the current president of Somaliland assumed power, following the sudden demise of president Egal, one of the first things he has done was to change the name of his grand father from Riyaale to Ra'yaale.He did this because he tought  to himself, or may be his close adviseres suggested to him , that Riyaale, which literally trasilates into 'the owner of  few goats', was dregatory and not worthy of a president!  

The selected name, Rayaale, which transilates into 'the originator of  great ideas', sounded more presidential.

The president has the right to do to whatever he likes to his grandfathers name,  but he should have measured up to it at least .....the originator of great ideas.

President Ra'yaale's style of governing in his incumbency belies his prefered name of Ra'yaale. Rather, he stayed true to his former name Riyaale, changing perhaps the ownership of the few goats  into the ownership of American dollars and spaciuos villas in Djibouti and Egypty.

...And perhaps the generator of no ideas of his own to speak of ....as ever.

Exactly a week ago, the Minister of  Civil Aviation and Transport in Somaliland, Mr. Ali Waran Ade, declared that people from South and South Central Somalia will not be allowed to inter Somaliland because of alleged cholera outbreak afflicting those parts of the country.

Now, almost a week latter, the minsiter issues another order permitting the same people to travel to Somaliland.

The minsiter, Mr. Waran Ade, who was a very junior security officer in the military regime of Siyad Bare, claimed, in contrast to other more knowledgable sources, that there is a cholera outbreak in South and Central Somalia according to specific information that they 'they collected' from those areas.

I did not know that we have such a superior intellegence apparatus in Somaliland!

Who does the minister think he is? Who is he trying to decieve here?

The Minsiter issued the earlier travel ban because he was afraid that poeple coming from these areas my impact on the fragile security situation in Somaliland but later on  lifted the ban because of direct pressure from airline operators in Somaliland, through the president.

If there was a real outbreak of cholera, one may wonder, shouldn't the minister of Health  and labor, Mr. Darwal, have declared the ban rather that the minister of Civil Aviation and Transport?

What a goverment!!!

The Issaq's under Riyaale continue to be lame ducks as far as Somali political developments are concerned. Riyaale's goverment ignores very important issues that could impact on the people of  Somaliland.

In fact, it seems that Riyaale is happy to see the Issaq's voiceless in what is currently going on in Somalia, while the Ethiopian sponsored TFG is spreading its rule throughout Somalia on the back of foreign troops. 

I am writing on this blog first time. This is to test how the thing works.