By Ali M. Ali, Erigavo, Sanag

Somaliland celebrated its 17th year and for the first time Badhan did that too.

It is not something that needs to be bragged about, for Badhan sounds in this context as the new kid in the block.

While those 17 years were ticking, there were MPS and Ministers who represented that area through three presidents including Honorable Dahir Rayale. So, why it took all of that time for people of eastern Sanag to celebrate 18 th of May?

Eastern Sanag’s members of both houses do indeed represent the region albeit they, at times, lend their loyalty to opposing parties. Hon. Saeed Jama measures up to the occasion with rhetoric and articulation and Mohamoud Saeed does accommodate the needs of his constituents. Although I admired his bravery pertaining to, his decision of using military might to claim Dhahar, nevertheless compromising Sanag’s peace and stability sound more important to me (afar beelood).

People worked hard for Sanag’s stability, following an era of wholesale hostilities and now enjoy it to the fullest. However, maintaining it requires a great deal of input, be it from within, from without or both, for optimum results, hitherto stays that way day in and day out.

Partitioning Sanag along clan lines would hinder the cohesive attitude needed to maintain the peace agreements that have been signed by all parties. An understandable separation of the state and the local agreements (afar beelood) exist in Sanag and scrambling it paves the way for the eventual inter-clan clashes over all sorts of problems that would have been easy to solve, had the peace agreements were the primary mechanism.

My intentions are not by any means political, but blaming Riyale’s administration is fair, provided that it is their initiative. However, we from eastern Sanag believe that the proposal is ours, but the administration could have done a better job had it consulted with all sectors of our society. They could have done a better job, had they conducted a study as to whether Badhan could be a region run by professional leaders, or as it appears potentially run by organized crime. The government has been caught off guard by going along with an ambiguous proposal put on the table by greedy individuals without regional support but posses an access to the most influential in the country, thanks to the regional cabinet member. The proposal is so murky and confusing that it left Isse Garad (Bahugaslabe), Nuh Omer, Jibril Saeed, Bah-habar Ahmed and Muhumud in Sanag, whereas the rest of Warsangeli are clustered in Badhan. If clan was a determinant factor, why sub-clans within the clan are left to be part of Sanag? Why those who are considered the peace pioneers in Sanag, resemble those who are in Gaza? Frankly, I can’t answer these questions, but I think, those whom as I said pioneered stability in Sanag with their counterparts, are going to be the buffer zone between Habaryonis and Warsangeli; and I, as an amateur conspiracy theorist know for a fact, that it is a monkey business and chaos would follow with certainty. Badhan region wants to share a border with its own clan and avoid any problems with Sanag, what a feeling.

Conniving as it is, the plan devours any thought that correlates Badhan and the clan, for it left out the most western Warsangelis. So, the million Dollar question is, what is the significance of Badhan as a region?

The deceiving freelancers and their Desmund Tutu in Jigjiga yar, who claim statesmen representing eastern Sanag with tacit and occasionally explicit endorsements from trusting traditional elders, have their fingerprints all over it. Fabricated unrest gives Tutu and his cronies leverage to shine up to the occasion by getting a quick solution, thus invigorating their appearance as statesmen. Probably Nostradamus, the 16 th century French physician, had mentioned Tutu in his quatrains.

Destitute as they are, our people would have known their destiny, had these obscure, yet appealing manipulators left them alone. When desperados, delusional and derelicts poignantly describe us, then Somaliland ought to understand why it took us so long to acknowledge 18 th of May.

My average folks, Somaliland day celebration in Badhan wasn’t genuine; it was well rehearsed and calculated effort to mislead the public and the administration respectively, just to fortify its nomination. Lord, have mercy, what an effort.

Last year Puntland tried to establish city council for Las qoray and I got there that very day witnessing a parade of town folks waving Somaliland flags and letting the new comers know that they are trespassing, that was genuine.

Comrade Mao said, “ A suitable temperature changes an egg into a chicken, but not an egg into a stone”, which means you can’t put a raw egg in a microwave and get kittens. We cannot solve a complex problem with constraints and variables, known and unknown, by using short cuts. Late Egal had a habit of utilizing such tactics and it became the easy way when dealing with Sool and Eastern Sanag. Winning the hearts and minds of a society played second to using shorts cuts by arming gangsters with cash and Land cruisers, albeit nowadays down graded to Surf.

Somaliland , how low can you go? Why Somaliland mentions colonial borders when dealing with Puntland? When in reality the border is nowhere near there. The border right now is about 30 kms from Erigavo, biyoguduud and shimbiraale, Somaliland army bases. How genuine that celebration was then, when reality in this neck of the woods, illustrates the degree of mistrust between Warsangeli and Somaliland. Be my guest and ask the defense minister where is the border between Puntland and Somaliland?

After 17 years, foreign NGOs who get to Erigavo are told, you are on your own if you choose to proceed to the east, when as a matter of fact whole Sanag is safer than the other five regions. Is Erigavo the border or there is a high noon latent discrimination against us? Is eastern Sanag a generic Somaliland compared to the rest of the nation? Erigavo is not the border, but Somaliland “administrations” treat it as such. As a matter of fact, it isn’t whether people of eastern Sanag consider themselves as “Landers”, but it is whether Somaliland considers them as such. Somaliland administrations need to clarify their stand pertaining to, whether eastern Sanag is considered a Somaliland domain or not. People got tired of receiving stooge after stooge sent by Hargeysa with empty promises. This administration is credited with propensity to help, but its conduit for doing so, rests on the feedback it gets from despotic area cabinet members who know how to misguide for a living.

Our presumed representatives in the cabinet can’t even identify themselves as easterners let alone publicly talk about these issues and that is a shame. Gaafane got you stuck in your little own world filled with insensitivity and paranoia. Pardon me boys, you asked for this with your deeds and am going to let you know in advance, keep it up and there will be no mercy in my game. You will come back to the real world, where good folks like me ride the bus, never worry about shidaal and eat at Waheen restaurant instead of that joint across the NEC building. Either you are with the good folks, or you will crumble like an old structure, and I don’t wonder when people go under.

We need to win the public trust through caring and investing in health, education, drinking water and roads. That is all. No Sicilian gangsters.

Changes come from within, not from without as Comrade Mao implied in his saying. President Rayale has intentions of doing that through 2% tax, however what the president doesn’t know is, the pre-planned embezzlement scheme that Tutu and his cohorts in Hargeysa and down here, worked hard to camouflage; bear in mind that Tutu has no access to the Chief. If that fund falls in to the hands of these “la cosa nostra” wise men, irrepressible upheaval would follow and like a runaway train, would crisscross through the nation. Mr. President, Sheikh Mustapha and Sheikh Dirir would do right with that fund.

In a nutshell, the powerlessness of our elected representatives with the inability of the cabinet member from this area, presented an opportunity to illusive Desmund Tutu of Jigjiga yar and his entourage, to misappropriate soon. He is so illusive, that he enjoys being in the upper echelons of his party, and unknowingly that party rejected Badhan as a state. Tutu is to Somaliland, what Hitler was to Eva Brown; Hitler made it sure that she dies first. Figure that out and mark my words or else you will sing;

Mama was a rolling stone,

Wherever she laid her mat was her home,

And when she died, Tutu got her gone!

Ali_ali692@hotmail.com