By Hussein D. Obsiye

Even though some Somaliland communities erroneously believe that cheating the voter registration and inflating the number of registered voters will put them in an elevated status than the rest of the communities, such fraudulent activities will definitely erode the international donors’ trust in Somaliland, and will undoubtedly derail the desperately needed international communities’ attention and aid.

In fact, the international community, who sponsored this voter registration, do not care about which entity in any community has more voters and which has less; they care about the stability of the community. If they feel that the community is striving to be a participatory, transparent, and just community, they go out of their way to accommodate them and help them in all possible avenues. However, if they suspect any irregularities of the sponsored projects, such as the voter registration, or sense any instability within the community, regardless of the cause, they pack up their belongings and leave. Most of the times, the donors who abandon such communities never go back ever. The international community that trusts Somaliland today can be angered by any suspicious activities of any kind. Somaliland citizens should fight against any irregularities, and against any activities that can incite an uprising and instability. Voter registration irregularities can create such incidents. 

Someone can ask the following question: How can the international community prove that there are irregularities in Somaliland voter registration? The answer is simple. The donors who sponsored this voter registration are the same donors who sponsored the previous three elections that took place in Somaliland, and they have the results. They know the number of voters in every election at each region. They also know, like everyone else who saw the results, that the change in the number of voters of all three elections, in all the regions was negligible—less than one percent. They can not trust the fact that in less than fours years, some communities claim to have increased their population by 240% which they did not achieve in the last fifteen years. There are neither industrial revolutions nor economic and humanitarian reasons to mobilize such exodus of human beings and justify those communities’ claim. Hence, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out thievery and the treacheries that took place. The donors see that and acknowledge the irregularities. They will definitely react negatively to this horrible undertaking.

The Awdal and Saaxil communities are the only ones that participated in a just voter registration, but the other Somaliland communities cheated the system. The Awdal elders consulted their diaspora about this dilemma. We all thought hard of this problem and came to the three following options:

1.      Appeal to Somaliland citizens.

2.      Appeal to the donors, including the US, and involving some congressmen.

3.      Hire an investigative agency, and sue Inner-peace.

This conversation is the first of the aforementioned three steps. The Gadabursi elite are appealing to the conscious Somaliland citizens (Isaaq) who can resist the usual clan groupthink. We are appealing to those who can picture a country (Somaliland) above the clan mindset and who can envision stable and prosperous country of Somaliland. We are appealing to those who can see the potential of a Somaliland country. If we do it right we will all win. We have a long sea corridor, and a large African customer pool. Our geographical location is unique, and it can help us prosper. We can prosper so large that we will never have time to think about which Somalilander belongs to what clan. We are too few to tackle such enormous landlocked African business (we are at the most three million people). We need each and every Somalilander to prosper. For example, when my merchandise is in Berbera, Zeila or Maid port, and I want to sell it to the Congolese immediately, I will need every Somalilander’s help, and it wouldn’t matter which part of Somaliland the person came from.  I will definitely trust that individual to help me sell. Wouldn’t you? We will both prosper. That is the community that I envision in my mind for Somaliland today.  What do you envision for Somaliland? If we envision the same Somaliland we can work together to conquer Central Africa businesses today, and if we do not envision the same Somaliland we can come to a mutual understanding and separate before we all waste valuable time.

Unfortunately, some Somaliland websites painted this childish deceit of voter registration as a plan masterminded by the president Dahir Riyale Kahin to stay on the seat of the presidency. That is wrong. If Riyale had a plan he would have inflated Awdal registered number of voters. The claims of these websites defy common sense. This selfish activity is strictly an Isaaq greed that can destroy Somaliland.

In conclusion, the Isaaq liberated this country, and the Gadabursi prepared it to sustain. It was a two clan deal at the beginning. Now it is a country where everyone can come and become a citizen. Nonetheless, Somaliland is still an egg, and if the Isaaq clan drops it, it will splatter, and the Gadabursi will not put it back together like they did in 1994. Do you want to drop our shared egg?   Write to me, I will hear you and listen.              

Hussein D Obsiye

hdobsiye@msn.com

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