President Sheikh Sharif: You and your presidency have made it to one year, despite so many gun sights aimed at you from your own backyard. For this, I must congratulate you. By just being there, if nothing else, you are a resisting-symbol to the forces of evil, which—try as they might—are unable to take Villa Somalia! This by itself is a psychological defeat to Satan the cursed one!

But, if you want to expand your horizon from the one, two or three buildings under your control, you must understand only fellow Somalis—your people—can make this happen. However generous foreigners are to you and your government in military, monetary and moral support, none of it can replace the vital support of your people. After all, this problem is theirs. It has been for the last 18 years! With good, selfless-leadership, which is what has been missing, Somalis are ready and willing to tackle their persistent problems.

Also, the problem with foreign support is it is not open-ended, and it is always contingent on sought results shown for it. Otherwise, it eventually dries up.  

Your number one job was to put this amble international support into good use by organizing your people against their terrible predicament: the Shaydaan forces with a black flag!  You should have already built the coalition of the willing, Somalis, to push the extremists back into whatever-hole they crawled out from. I am sorry, but you have not led on that account.

After one year, you have not even landed on any place in Somalia outside Mogadishu. You have not communicated on the air either, for all Somalis to hear, any coherent strategy to solve Somalia’s never-ceasing problems.

A good leader, by nature or by good advisers, would have surveyed the scene of the conflict and looked for available natural allies first. Moreover, a better leader would have invented through personal and political skills new ones for this absolute cause of overcoming the unmovable by reason intransigents on Somalia’s deserved peace and order! It is simple elementary, my dear Sheikh, to understand there are potential millions of Somalis who, with right leadership, are ready to reclaim their country!

There are only four groups violently contending on this miserable place—Somalia our homeland: The two extremists, who are working feverishly on pulling their resources together, and the TFG—your government—and the Sufis of Ahlu Sunna.

Mr. President, isn’t it incredible for foreign powers to goad you and your government into uniting with Ahlu Sunna, your only natural ally against the fanatics?

Most definitely, a thinking Somali leader, under current circumstances, would have also gone to both Puntland and Somaliland. He or she would have made clear to these regions their two respective, peaceful and self-administrating shindigs are in grave danger if they did not join the fight against the extremists. As I write, the only barrier between Al-Shabaab and Puntland is Ahlu Sunna’s successful control of the Galguduud region. Remove that and Puntland would most certainly come under the full assault of Al-Shabaab, and on to Somaliland. As it is now, both Puntland and Somaliland are not unscathed by Al-shabaab’s long terroristic reach of sending lone bombers or assassins! 

Most Somalis are not aware that Somaliland has been a fertile ground for the likes of Al-Shabaab; this owing to many Somalilanders who went to Wahhabi schools in Saudi Arabia from the 1970s. Many towns there, like Buroa, where women have voluntarily been in Hijabs for decades now, is under this Islamic ideology. The top leader of Al-Shabaab—among others—in the south is from there. To be welcomed there, all Al-shabaab would need is an unimpeded path to there!  

The only Somali group which has shown a proven track-record success against Al-Shabaab is Ahlu Sunna Wal Jamah. It would be unfortunate for you Mr. President, and more importantly for all Somalis, if you see them as your competition to be minimized or undermined!

Two weeks ago, Beletweine was captured from the forces of evil by a joint military campaign of Ahlu Sunna Wal Jamah and local clan militias loyal to your government. Yet, instead of consolidating their blood-earned victory, your militias abandoned their posts. A well-placed source has it that a call was made from Mogadishu to affect such treachery to deny victory In Ahlu Sunna’s name. This led Al-shabaab to take advantage of the situation and easily recapture the city.

Understandably, there is a time for everything in life. There is a time for competition in politics and power. However, this is not the time for such on the carcass of country and people of Somalia. Besides, the need of the Somali people for peace and order is paramount now.
A wise person once said “victory has thousand fathers, and defeat is an orphan.”Don’t you understand, Mr. President, Ahlu Sunna’s victory is you and your government’s victory. You should make their successes, which is what smart politics would call for, more of your own by supporting them fully. For starters, you must recognize and praise their efforts. Give them the support they need. Have a close military and political honest relationship, so that you together coordinate the fight against the Jinni forces.  In doing so, you will both be rewarded handsomely in the end by the people.

By the way, is not this also your best way, Mr. President, to show success to your international donors, who are by now impatient? Instead of looking for allies in Kampala and Bujumbura, is not it past time you look to within Somalia? I s not this what the people expect of you? This is clearly a test of your leadership abilities, to create coalitions among willing Somalis.   

On an interview with Voice of America (VOA) a week ago, I am pleased that you, Mr. President, have recognized the fiasco in Beletweine; that there are also on-going talks between you and Ahlu Sunna to iron-out the differences. I wish both of you all the more success, which will be a clear blow to the Devil himself, the Al-Shabaab.

The alternative, of ignoring or undermining Ahlu Sunna, will be disastrous for you in the long run. You and your government will be stuck in your few bunkers in Mogadishu, unable to push back the enemy surrounding you. The international community will lose faith in you and your government!

Hassan A. Zaylai
E-Mail:haahzay@hotmail.com