By Abdifatah Sheikh Ibrahim
Recently, a declaration of with-drawing allegiance from Somaliland administration was made by traditionally respected individual. Its crescendo has cascaded across Somali regions and the pendulum of the public attention swung towards this new revelations with all sorts of rumours being disseminated. Was this man some random psychic that woke up in the middle of the night only to make diabolical statements in the morning? Was he this dormant hero that wanted to brandish his momentous will and strength to salvage his people from exploitation, as many might say? Everyone had their say. Many endorsed his endeavors and called it “reviving a lost cause” and many opposed him on the account of promoting detrimental syllogism on faulty premise but no where was it seriously discussed among his hard core opponents (mainly the Siilanyo administration) the underlying theme and what flickered the dynamite of Mr. Waber’s mindset.
Suldan Waber
Letter to President Silanyo by Awdal and Salal’s Elders
It is worth-mentioning that in 2011 a letter, highlighting the injustices and imbalance upheld and exercised in Somaliland against these regions, the deprivation and monopoly of many vital areas was sent to president Silanyo only to be managed with empty promises and old clichés of how peace-loving they are. Another comprehensive and copious one was sent in 2014. This time, the elders had a learning lesson and did not want to let this opportunity go to waste. They set off to Hargeisa to directly dissect the issue with president Silaanyo only to find out the president had surprisingly headed to Berbera with his swimming costume to avoid meeting them. Thanks to the blind attitude devoid of homage and respect the president had employed. Cultural representatives of the entirety of these regions were ignored and their message considered trivially pathetic and way out of the rounds of reality.
But they honorably draped themselves the responsibility that comes with their representation. They summoned patience from the far ends of the earth and later submitted their letter, but this time it was tightly attached with strings and the clarion call of unanimous statement” if we don’t get our request answered, we will break away”. The interesting thing is that Suldan Waber was one of the delegation.
After the so called militia of Suldan Waber had surfaced, Suldan Saleban, the oldest intellectual of the delegation, stated in a video published in social media that ” Mr Waber followed the instructions they (the members of the delegation) had agreed upon and that their mere difference was that he said ” we broke away”, changing it into a past tense, while they ( the rest of the elders) DID NOT”. Here, my opinion would be totally convergent with the claim asserted by Suldan Saleban. Suldan Waber is only a personification of the frustration that wreaked emotional havoc in the hearts and minds of these residents, the feeling of injustices that has enveloped and imbued their routine on a daily basis and the feeling that they are entertained with pies in the sky and allocations of ministries with little or no budget compared to while the ministries of As and Bs ( especially groomed for some) which almost diametrically crack under the tonnage of substantially huge budget. The meditation on such frustrations granted access to cynicism which swept through the majority of the residents of those regions, incentivizing them to revolt the strange exclusivity evident in all economical, social and political strata.
Waning support for Somaliland among the youth in eastern and western regions
It is the pervasive domination of the middle regions in almost every governmental posts that has gigantically contributed to the waning and abatement of endorsement among the youth of those respective regions. Almost every individual (mainly youth) of that regional origin( eastern and western regions of Somaliland) that I have met profess how that idea of Somaliland is no longer endearing to them and not worth-honoring in their chambers and dossier of principles and belief while, conversely, the idea of Somaliland is as sacred as it gets in the middle regions and that words ” ana kaadi uso cabey’ may pop up somewhere in fourth rebuttal of even a casual debate. Why? Why do you think the extent of fidelity differs? is it that the people from the eastern and western regions are suffering from severe hung-over and lost sight in the vitality of tenets of unity?
The bitter truth is that the middle regions view Somaliland as a gift that was presented to them to find consolation over the atrocities committed by Siyad Barre regime and much worse, the current administration of Siilaanyo is devising doomed strategies that give a way to reverse metamorphosis of Somaliland back to tribal fiefdoms. Tribalism, nepotism, cronyism, and power abuse have dramatically soared into unprecedented levels.
It is these reasons and many more that drove Suldan Waber to walk on the thin line of the far extreme of the rope, forsake his allegiance to the unity of Somaliland and try find solace among surrounding villages and the terrace of the mountains that lay around them to rescue a cause that he deems imperative.
In conclusion, though I may not consent the manners and methods taken by Suldan Waber, I hold the firm belief that he is nothing but a burst wound. A wound whose bandage Somaliland has long abandoned. A wound that has waged a war against the invading virulent strains of injustices and it should be treated as such. Rubbing a salve to the weapon that caused the wound would only escalate the degree of susceptibility of Somaliland to get pushed to a bottomless chasm of disintegration, an unforeseen chaos of similar codes to Arabs Spring peppered with Alshabab tactics, and ultimately agonizing divorce of dream of recognition. Justice is unquestionably of paramount importance and any leader or community should not be swayed by anything that might fall short of letters of J-U-S-T-I-C-E as it is the pillar and only pillar of the heavens and the earth and anything that lies between.
Abdifatah Sheikh Ibrahim
Email:abdifatah191@hotmail.com
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