As Hassan completed his first year in office, commentators of all stripes have pored over his performance during this period. Most of the articles I have seen make dismal reading. Needless to say, the subject is far from having been exhausted. My interest in joining the foray is to dwell, from my perspective and those of like-minded observers, on how the president used his exceptional personality gifts and extra-judiciary self empowerment to achieve what he set out to accomplish – whether personal, clan or national ends if any.
As we all remember, Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud was an academician of modest means and for all appearances apolitical prior to his interest to enter the race for the presidency. As such, he owes his election as president not so much to any high profile national stature he had, or previous government experience, or proven political track, but simply by the good grace of his Gulf backers and their generous money. Since his election, money is certainly one factor in helping him to grease many palms to do his bidding. But money alone can not explain everything about the president’s meteoric rise to supreme power.
What is amazing about him is that the hitherto unknown and nationally insignificant NGO operator- cum-academician was able in no time, once he was declared president, to crown himself unopposed as a supper statesman acting as both president and prime minister, and all without firing a shot! He was able to do this, in conjunction with his unfettered misuse of State resources, through his cheery charm and cunning, his put-on honesty and nationalism and not least his ebullient eloquence. Give the devil his due and one has to grudgingly admire his feats even if one abhors his underhand modus operandi.
For his good fortunes, President Hassan can only thank a docile Prime Minister agreeing or acquiescing to be shorn of his powers, a collaborative speaker of Parliament who is either pliable by nature or simply looking after his own self interest, and a Parliament amenable to be rendered toothless and impotent. Few reckoned that the end of the transitional government under Sheikh Shariif and the advent of its successor would usher such undemocratic and unconstitutional outcomes.
As if by alchemy, Mr Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud has transformed his presidency, constitutionally a ceremonial one, into an all conquering one-man rule. While Siyad Barre came to power through a military coup d’etat and maintained his absolute power by force, Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud got it through money in the first place, and keeps his quasi one-man-rule through manipulation, corruption and patronage. As Lord Acton of Britain said (1887), “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. How true! President Hassan is already making a mockery of the constitutional separation of the powers of the key organs of the State.
People around the world do sometimes put up with power hungry and /or authoritarian leaders and tolerate their excesses and abuse of power if they are deemed benevolent, and so long as their contribution to the nation’s development and progress far outweigh their authoritarian downside. One can think of some legendary powerful leaders, such as Lee Kuan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore, Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Meles Zenawi, the late Ethiopian Prime Minister, and Paul Kagame, the current President of Rwanda, as belonging to the benevolent type. President Mohamed Siyad Barre could have been included among this company for his undeniable landmark achievements in his early years of his rule but has to be excluded for having in the end sacrificed the nation for his own political survival.
For his part, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamed uses his acquired political supremacy to single-mindedly monopolise power mainly for his own personal ends and clan benefits. But this self-serving megalomaniac power pursuit is not the image that the President would like to project to the nation. Hence, for public consumption and distraction, he spares no effort and misses no opportunity to portray himself with missionary zeal as a leader with a mission to fulfil and as one solely motivated and driven by national interest. And as proof, he would recite ad nauseam his commitment to deliver on the six pillars of what he often calls his administration’s priorities (technically, it should be that of the PM and his government, but that is another story).
Lest we forget, the much vaunted six pillars consist of:
1) Creating stability in the country;
2) speeding economic recovery,
3) pursuing national reconciliation as a basis for peace- building;
4) improving Government’s capacity to respond to the needs of its people by improving service delivery; 5) restoring national unity;
6) increasing international partnerships and creating closer ties with Somalia’s neighbours and friends.
No President since Siyad Barre was better placed than President Hassan to accomplish these goals given the overwhelming public support showered on him on his election throughout Somalia. The president could have counted on their wholehearted support knowing they value these goals more than he does. Where there is a will there is a way as the axiom goes. And if the President was true to his word and mastered the necessary will, he would have achieved at least some of these goals, most notably national reconciliation and through it national unity, while making tangible progress in others.
As it is, none of these goals has been achieved. If anything, there has been marked regression since President Hassan took office in the critical and interdependent areas of national reconciliation and the restoration of national unity. This setback is due less to external factors hampering his initiatives and more to his own confrontational and conflict inducing actions aimed at cynically bolstering his own personal aggrandisement regardless of their adverse consequences for national reconciliation and unity on which hangs the survival of the nation. I am therefore focusing on national reconciliation and the restoration of national unity given their pivotal and overarching importance.
Reviving national unity across the country is unquestionably the nation’s priority. But repairing our fractured unity would not be feasible unless there is first reconciliation among the Somali people at both the national and regional levels: at the national level, such reconciliation is to heal the lingering festering wounds from the years of inter-clan strife; and at the regional level, to persuade the northern secessionist clan calling itself Somaliland to end their secession now that they can enjoy their autonomy like other State members of the federation. Rather than truly pursue the national reconciliation goal in action, the President has only paid lip service to it. Instead, he opted to ride roughshod over the constitution and adopted gratuitous confrontational approach in his dealings with some targeted clans and regions other than his own.
Whether his actions are driven by clannish dogma or by a cynical desire to tap instant popularity among his core constituency, or both, is a moot question. But what is quite clear is that their colossal collateral damage to reconciliation and national unity is not uppermost in the president’s calculations. His confrontational actions, not in the least conducive to reconciliation, are willingly or unwittingly contributory to conflict promotion. Under the circumstances, the President had wriggled out of his obligation to deal with the most thorny and pressing issue that can make or break reconciliation and national unity. That, needless to say, is the restoration of looted properties in Mogadishu to their rightful owners. Most of these owners have now given up hope of ever recovering their property, as they also lost trust with the president’s oft-repeated but hollow assurances.
Those property owners in Mogadishu, hailing from non-Hawiye clans, whose property escaped occupation or downright appropriation, are now auctioning them as fast as they can. Most Somalis in the diaspora and in the rest of Somalia, repulsed by this adverse environment, consider it foolhardy to invest in the capital when there is no respect for property rights and when the current President, synonymous with the government, is unwilling, despite his pledges, to enforce such rights when the culprits are from his constituency. Mogadishu might have been once a truly cosmopolitan capital of Somalia but is now increasingly becoming one clan’s exclusive enclave. Under President’s Hassan’s watch, regional and clan schisms in Somalia have now reached dangerous levels reminiscent of the 1990s.
In the case of reconciliation between the secessionist clan calling itself Somaliland and the State of Somalia, entailing the end of the secession and restoring unity, the gulf between the President’s professed public pronouncements defending Somalia’s unity and his real actions on the ground could not have been again so glaringly far apart. From the outset, the President saw it mutually advantageous to play the mythical Irirism card that is claimed to bind politically the northern secessionist clan and that from which the President hails.
Though no secret deals have been signed, the outlines of the common understanding are all the same clear. President Hassan would count on the support of their members in the Somali Parliament for his election as well as their continued backing throughout his presidency any time he faces possible challenges or impeachment in parliament. As a quid pro quo, he is expected to be more receptive to Somaliland’s demands at the on-going talks between the two sides. Both parties have delivered on their commitments.
In the case of President Hassan, he has recognised Somaliland not as the one-clan secessionist enclave it is, but as a de facto separate ” country” encompassing all the territories/regions of former British Somaliland. By doing this, he has sacrificed the unionist clans and regions to the secessionists’ hegemony and aspirations in exchange for their support. For the people of Khaatumo, what is an unforgettable and unforgivable perfidy is the President’s hearty unsolicited congratulations to the secessionists on the occasion of their last election on the same day when they were massacring scores of Khatumo unionists defending Somalia’s unity and resisting this sham election being forced on their people. To add more injuries and insults, he conceded to Somaliland at the two successive talks in Turkey as being a country on par with Somalia, something unthinkable from previous Somali leaders. That is one face the President puts on in his dealings with Somaliland.
And there is the other side of the President who, when confronted with his treacherous concessions to Somaliland, would cross his heart and vow his unswerving defence of Somalia’s unity. And when faced with outraged unionists from Khaatumo and AwdalStates, he would be reassuring them that the unity of Somalia is sacrosanct and non-negotiable, or promise them that they would take their rightful place at the next round of these talks. This has yet to materialise. The President’s professed defence of the unity of Somalia has been repeatedly exposed for the fallacy it is.
Many Somalis will remember the question put to the president at the press conference in Brussels after the end of the New Deal Conference for Somalia on 16 September. The answer he gave epitomises his double-dealing and double talk on the unity question as on other issues. He was put on the spot when one gatecrasher hailing from Khaatumo State asked him in French and then Somali why the northern States of Khaatumo and Awdal were excluded from sending representations to the conference. He retorted in Somali, putting on his usual beguiling smile, that there is always tomorrow, and when that comes, these absent States would be invited next time! That speaks volumes about the extent to which the President would go to fool the public.
As Abraham Lincoln said: “you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.“. This, typically, applies to the current President of Somalia. Fooling the Somali people has been his choice of leadership. As a new leader with an apparently clean past record, he was initially allowed a period of prolonged honeymoon and self-indulgence. But the honeymoon is over and the going has become increasingly uphill as the public ceased to be fooled. The result is that his credibility has now plummeted to an all time low. And the more he cuts corners to get his way, in the face of an increasingly mistrustful public, the more his crumbling credibility is further eroded. In many quarters in Somalia, he is now seen as deceptive, devious and divisive, and far more dangerous to the destiny of the country than his much-maligned predecessor.
As the title of this article cries for, to save Somalia and its unity requires that it be saved from its own President. Short of impeaching him, that would require that he be cut down to size and forced back to his constitutional ceremonial role. That would not be possible as long as the current Prime Minister, who is willing to let the President usurp his executive powers, remains in office. That is why the Prime Minister rather than the President be removed through a vote of no confidence in Parliament and replaced with someone who is up to the job. Of course, President Hassan, having became addicted to his abuse of power, will not take his demise without a fight. As a minimum, he would use (or abuse) his constitutional prerogative to appoint a Prime Minister, and would name another pliant successor if he can find one. That is why Parliament should this time put down its foot and fulfil its obligations to the nation. The buck stops at its door. It should not allow the President to play Russian roulette with our unity.
Osman Hassan
Khaatumo Forum for Peace, Unity and Development
