By Ahmed M Hassen, Chairman of Congress for Somali Cause

About four years ago, residents of the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia were jubilant about Mustafa Omer’s rise to power, when he took over the helms of the restive region after the dramatic fall of the former President, Abdi Mohamud Omar (Iley).  Their reasoning was simple; Mustafa symbolized their hope as an outspoken leader whose family members were victims of the barbaric acts of the former regime.

They hoped that he would genuinely represent their legitimate interests in the national forums and ensure that Somalis achieve economic and political equality with other nations of Ethiopia. But quickly Mustafa dashed the hopes of 8 million Somalis. Instead of advocating for them, he reveled in a sophomoric rehashing of a dying Amhara supremacist narrative at the expense of the aspirations of Somalis and the rest of the Ethiopian nations.

Parachuted to Power

Unlike his predecessors, who were selected in Jijiga, Mustafa was hand-picked, indeed unceremoniously, by the federal government to do its bidding in the Somali region. After PM Abiy unconstitutionally ousted Abdi Illey from power, he was brought to power, using the military. Feeling the end was near, Abdi Iley went on a rampage in Jigjiga, killing many people and destroying properties on August 4, 2018. 

This necessitated the federal government’s military intervention and, consequently, his removal and arrest. Then Mustafa was handpicked, christened to the region’s ruling party, and anointed to lead the Somali regional state. Subsequently, Mustafa led a purge to eliminate some of the supporters of the former regime and substituted them with mostly unelected officials. Often from his family or those affiliated with him through marriage. 

Perhaps, the action of PM Abiy was justified, given the mental state of Abdi Iley and the atrocities committed on 4th August. But, the fact that the PM handled the situation ineptly and failed badly to legitimize Mustafa’s rule by engaging a broad section of Somalis remains a mystery. It is clear, though, that transparency and accountability were not given due credence.

Shameless Rigging and Disastrous Famine

Amartya Sen rightly argued that famines do not occur in democracies. This is because as democratic governments ”have to win elections and face public criticism, they have a strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes.  In Ethiopia, and more specifically in the Somali region, the strong administrations of the past that managed to hold regular sham elections are now replaced with weak ones that even faltered to hold such sham elections.

At a time, when the region is grappling with the impacts of the worst drought in decades, President Mustafe is bending over backwards to divert attention, evade responsibility, and cover up his utter failure in responding to the drought disaster.  Because of his failed leadership, the drought is devastating the lives and livelihood of millions, putting extreme pressure on food prices, livestock survival, water, and food availability, overwhelming millions of households’ coping strategies. Farmers and herders exhausted their assets and watched their animals die and their crops wilt.

Responding to such natural disasters indeed requires a long-term approach to provide the investments and policies necessary for appropriate and sustainable development, allowing the vulnerable pastoralists and subsistence farmers either to adapt to their changing environment or transition into alternative livelihoods. But, unfortunately, President Mustafa, instead of focusing on addressing the devastating challenges faced by the vulnerable communities in the region, has blithely chosen to invest all his time and state resources to stay in power.

The fact that the system he is leading had spent over two hundred million Birr allocated for the drought, in stuffing ballot boxes is practically an affront to human dignity. Recently, the Deputy Bureau Head of the Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Bureau, admitted that the budget apportioned for responding to the drought was diverted to financing a sham election boycotted by all opposition parties and individual candidates. The mysterious role of the National Election Board of Ethiopia in this disastrous scheme is more damaging and painful to the consciousness of the people. It was reported that the Board failed to repay the fund it borrowed from the region after the regional government failed to provide supportive shreds of evidence of the expenses.

The leadership of the Board and the Federal Government are required to acknowledge the depth and consequence of the problem, in which they played a crucial role. Could the lives of the children who died in Salahad and an elderly man who lost his life in Elkarre, have been saved, had the Board acted responsibly?  Can or will the Board and the other Federal Institutions that conspired with the regional administration to misuse the public fund find an answer for their acts?      

Democratizing and Internationalizing Corruption

In early 2019, President Mustafe summoned Somali intellectuals and civil servants, who were eager, at the time, to hear from their new leader to Sayid Mohamed’s Hall in Jigjiga. Corruption and how best it should be dealt with or practiced was one of the subjects that the president addressed in his speech. To the surprise of many, the president emphasized the importance of learning key lessons from Kenya, where he lived many years before he came back to Ethiopia. The president could not praise enough the concept of one “being patient when it is the turn of others” and “eat voraciously when it is their turn”. Following this blatant encouragement of resources misuse by the regional president, the corruption that had been prevalent in the region has metamorphosed into glaring looting.

Contracts are awarded to family members and friends, with a total disregard of the public procurement rules and procedures and with exaggerated costs. Such contracts have never been delivered on many occasions, either completely or partially. On other occasions, the contractors cut corners, compromising the quality of products or services badly. Because of his visible role in awarding and distributing public contracts, the older brother of the regional president, Mr. Mohamed Agjar has been dubbed as Mr 10% (ten percent) in the region. Other family members are also openly involved in the public contract business.

Indeed, the region is replete with similar Orwellian incidents as every senior government official and their families have their shares in the spoils. Therefore, corruption and looting have become so endemic that the president was quoted on several occasions admitting that his government can be considered the most corrupt government that the region has ever had. Nevertheless, he brags about how much he has democratized corruption, elucidating that he has devolved the misconduct and that everyone is deeply involved in the malfeasance.

Ruling Through Deception and Double-dealing

It is unfortunate that deceit is another bad character that defines Mustafa’s personality and government. He exhibits despotic and unjust behavior, fiercely oppressing his subordinates and seeking to assume absolute power. His words count over everyone else’s and there is no place for different views. He is a tyrannical leader, whose commands must be executed (no matter what), with no governing body to check his powers. The president is arrogant, impulsive, self-absorbed, conceited, and insidious. Like other dictators, Mustafa (the regional president) aims at fostering cults of personality, a form of hero-worship in which the masses are fed (mostly unsuccessfully) propaganda declaring him to be flawless and a divine leader. He buys loyalties and protection with public resources, and he often seeks to forge artificial alliances through dishonesty and duplicity, focusing mainly on officials from the Amhara region and indeed the orthodox Church in Jigjiga, which the president considers an Amhara institution.    

The president runs dozens of fake Facebook accounts to spread negative propaganda against his perceived enemies. Wire-tapping is pervasive in the region to the extent that ordinary men and women are now hesitant to make any telephone communication. The president is employing these terror and coercive techniques with the belief that people will eventually display the attitudes he wants them to and that individuals will, in the end, prefer the security of complete submission to the grave risks of an independent attitude. He often distorts facts and other people’s words and intentions for his political, personal, and financial interests. He is bound to exterminate whoever he considers capable of unveiling his intentions.

Such characteristics and behavior have undermined the values, meanings, and intentions of governance, caused damaging social divisions and inner conflicts, discouraging cooperation among stakeholders, encouraged the formation of closed groups, and created fear and professional insecurities.

For many, who arrived with independent reputations yet ended up losing so much, proximity to the president has become a crushing experience. Indeed, people who have entered the regional President’s orbit have discovered that they are actors in a movie he considers himself starring. The President considers people as nothing more than a mere tool of his ego, who should survive as long as they serve his purpose. He is an individual who completely lacks compassion and empathy.

The way he betrayed his friends who stood by him in his hour of need and helped ascend the stairs of power, illustrates his cruelty and the depth of his disloyalty. The fact that he informed his friends that their appointment was rejected by the federal government explains his inner feeling of insecurity and deep distrust of working in institutions. The federal government later distanced itself from the scheme, pointing out that it has many diasporas working for it in important positions.   

Killing the Historical Memories of Somalis

Somalis suffered multi-dimensional injustices at the hands of the Abyssinian occupiers since the late 19th century, injustices that have continued until today in one form or another. That history of injustices, partly written and mostly shared orally, is still vivid in the collective memories of the Somalis. This indicates the failure of the currently dominant Abyssinians to erase Somali history using cultural and educational institutions, failure to assume epistemic authority over Somalis and colonize their minds.

With the coming to power of Mustafa, Abyssinians seem to have someone to erase Somalis’ collective historical narrative. He had been promoting narratives that undermine Somalis’ view of history. Of course, he would like me to publicly criticize him in these terms. Why? Because his main audience, the neftengn have a president of the Somali region who shares their understanding of history, the first in the history of the Somali region. Not even Abdi Mohammed Oumer (aka Abdi Iley), the butcher of Somalis on behalf of his EPRDF masters, questioned the historical injustices Somalis suffered and shared the narratives of their enemies. It is important to remember that Abdi Iley commissioned the monument’s building for Sayid Mohammed Abdella Hassen and installed it in the center of Jigjiga, the capital of the Somali region. – something Mustafa will never do.

Both Mustafa and Amhara elites see ethnic multinational federalism as the root of Ethiopia`s problem, a characterization the overwhelming majority of Somalis disagree with.

Mustafa`s presidency emboldened the Abyssinian settlers and encouraged them to ask for a seat in the Somali region parliament and for a monument to be built on the Karamara mountain-chain to commemorate “Ethiopia`s” victory during the Ethio-Somalia war of 1977/78. Note that a “Karamara victory” day was never celebrated in the past, even during the Mengistu regime, a change of fortune for the better for Abyssinian-settlers as one close observer of Somali politics, Faisal Roble, summarized as “In Jigjiga today it is better to be an Amhara than to be a Somali”.

All this is when a single Somali isn’t able to work in the Amhara region while thousands of them are holding the Somali Region’s most vital jobs.

It looks today as though the Amhara have taken over the presidency of the Somali region, as Mustafa has intentionally decided to be more Amhara than the Amharas.  Perhaps Stockholm syndrome is at work here but many observers of the SRS politics are bewildered of how can a Somali leader be so anti-Somali in deeds to the point of allying himself with the Amhara extremists while at the same time singing to the tune of “Soomaliyeey too soo”! Insanity!

Ahmed M Hassen Baji
Chairman of Congress for Somali Cause
Email: ahmed.hassen01@gmail.com