By Shukri M. Geele

The Prime Minister of Somalia, Abdi Farah Shirdon, announced on November 8, 2013 that the President of Somalia, Hassan Mohamud, had asked him to resign. He portrayed this request from the President as nothing more than a misreading of the Constitution on the President’s part. Since then, the hoopla surrounding the differences of our two top politicians has increased ten fold, but the true nature and the root cause of the conflict is yet to emerge. However, the argument of the opposing sides becomes comical day by day, especially the stories being planted in support of the President in the media.

Among other stories reported in the media were the 168 deputies waiting in the wings to depose Prime Minister Shirdon, whose names and signatures have yet to emerge even when a bill against his government was introduced today, November 24, 2013, at Parliament. Strangely the bill seemed to target the Prime Minister in person rather than the Council of Ministers, which is the target of any confidence vote.

Another story was about a parliamentarian by the name of Abdurrahman Hosh Jibril, a lawyer by training known for his legal gymnastics and sycophancy, who threw caution to the wind and attacked the Prime Minister personally, professionally and rendered a contorted reading of the Somali Constitution. Other deputies were more circumspect and fearful of the President’s wrath if they stood with the Prime Minister. Some have been musing that it is likely the President might win this round.   Most of them were hedging their bets for a possible lucrative, monetary windfall from this political episode.

But, the worst for the Prime Minister is that the holiest of the hollies, Mr. Amin Amir, the world renowned Somali cartoonist, who has gone into service for the President and made it his job to discredit Mr. Shirdon through his cartoons. He often shows the lackluster Prime Minister dozing on the job or unable to drive the “Car of State”. The Prime Minister is shown in Amir’s cartoons as lazy, know-nothing fellow who likes nothing more than allowing the world to pass him by, while President Mohamud is portrayed as a knight in a shining armor who always comes to the rescue at the end to save the day. The story around Somali campfires is that Mr. Amir, who used to be an Equal Opportunity Offender, has been co-opted by the President through bribes or intimidation. Literally, this means that Mr. Amir has given up on being an objective observer.

So, with this dirge of negative publicity, how can the Prime Minister keep his head above water and defend his interests?

It seems hopeless. But that is not true. There are plenty of pathways to defend the Prime Minister’s person, character and political record.  Here is one of them. He should sit tight, go through the motions of the vote of confidence, bide his time and tell his story. And what a story it is. The story that he has to tell is not about the one that you hear often, which is that the president is usurping the Prime Minister’s powers; but rather, he has to tell the story of Corruption at the Presidential Palace. By now, he must have a lot of evidence on the President’s dark side, feeding from the public for years.

There is lot of evidence of this corruption. And if Mr. Shirdon is someone who is worth his salt, he must have recordings and other documentations of the corruption that goes on at the presidential palace.  We know that Yusur Abrar, the seven-week Governor of Somalia’s Central Bank, through the urgings of the IMF and the World Bank has documented the shenanigans at the Presidential Palace. The United Nations monitoring group for Somalia and Eritrea did the same.  The predecessor of Yusur at the Central Bank, Mr. Abdisalam Omar, who was shown the door, thrown to the wolves as a scapegoat for the corruption of others, is another source of information. In his case, the dictum that “there is no honor among thieves” is an apt description of his relation to the President.
And the Prime Minister could use these documents as corroborative evidence.

But more importantly, he must have new facts on the President’s wrong doings. He has been privy to secret meetings about the airport contract and the President’s construction companies that always win government contracts.  The claim is made, yet to be proven, that Mr. Mohamud has been lining his pockets through corrupt practices before he even became the President of Somalia, during his NGO days.

A counter narrative to this line of reasoning is that the International Community that anointed President Hassan Mohamud knows him as a crooked character, but views him as an asset, literally a manageable vessel of their corruption and mistakes in Somalia and cares the least about his corruption. But the truth is that American and European politicians when corruption reaches the media are, and rightly so, good weather friends who would not tolerate misuse of public funds.  Thus, if the president’s corruption is proven to exist beyond reasonable doubt or for that matter the preponderance of the evidence, then “good-bye to the New Deal” or at least running it from Mogadishu. The Turks, Qatari’s and Saudis could throw the President a lifeline as they do in such situations, but that would be messy as well.

The Prime Minister should have the character to see this conflict to the end. There should be no wavering; he has to show a strong backbone, stick to the facts and tell it often with as much detail as possible till everybody hears of this corruption story.

Mr. Shirdon is a mighty tough guy.  He is stubborn and has been known to square off against a herd of hundred parliamentarians on his own. People talk of his left hook that comes from nowhere and knocks his enemies flat. I think everybody remembers the time, few months back, when he threw the Barre Hirale wrench at the Jubaland State edifice and brought it almost tumbling down. Four years of hard work and hundreds of meetings in preparation for setting up of a regional state, came to stand still and is still in limbo.

Thus, a word of wisdom for the wise; Mr. President, let Mr. Shirdon be and beware of his left hook that is coming your way.

Shukri M.Geele
Email:shukrigeele2013@gmail.com