Since the inception of Somaliland as a separate state from the chaotic South, hordes of Somalilanders have been rushing to claim the craps from the high table of the warlords and any outfit that styled itself as the government of Somalia.

Initially, this trend was largely restricted to those who could not stand on their own in Somaliland politics, in unkindly terms, the no-hope losers. They neither had any following nor commanded any respect, neither tribal allegiance nor professional recognition. They were just guys who ran short of their chat and had no idea where to get a wage other than sell the dignity of their own for peanuts.

After time, the Southern warlords realized that these individuals were nothing but pretenders who were in the game for the miserly pennies and pathetic freebees they were throwing them and thus started treating them as they deserve – with contempt. They will use them to give their numerous 'governments of national reconciliation' the craved national character and the impression that views of people in Somaliland were reflected in whatever they agreed in those never ending meeting they always have.

It turned unto a classic case of political symbiosis between the southern warlords and the pretenders from Somaliland. While the pretenders got pathetic Judas coins, the warlords got an alleged mandate to claim their sovereignty over Somaliland and more importantly a stronger case for serious money from international donors. However, given the gulf between the realities on the ground and the claimed utility of relationship it was bound to be discovered for what it was – a pathetic innovation for rent seeking.

When 'representatives of sections of those who live in what they call northwest' were locked out of their room in Mogadishu in the last but one government, it signaled the end of the futile and mutually self-deceiving relationship between the two.

In Somaliland, the popular attitude has been to ignore such elements and let them to their own devices as they had absolutely no import to Somaliland affairs. While the warlords cum pirates cum self styled mullahs embarked on fishing for candidates with a semblance of value. And here is where the educated Diaspora whose careers have stagnated for various reasons come to play.

What the public has failed to notice is this slow metamorphosis of the relationship between the southern warlords and the pretenders from 'north'. As we have seen, the initial pretenders were a collection of losers, yester-politicians and clever fraudsters. This is changing as individuals considered as politicians or clan luminaries and respected religious leaders dash under the cover of darkness to offer their unqualified allegiance to the 'civilized' warlords.

The most disturbing revelation from this cohabitation between individuals we respect and consider as opinion leaders is their total surrender to the covenants established in the south. Just as the earlier lot did at independence, the current traitors are interested in is pathetic handouts such as shell of positions in meaningless cabinet that functions at best as a conduit for rent seeking over the dead bodies that litter the south offer them. Some are even out there for a useless passport or a hotel accommodation and for some, a yet to be defined psychotic sense of grandeur.

If we regretted the surrender of the 1960s, what is coming is even worse if we are not careful. At independence, we surrendered our sovereign independence seeking greater brotherhood with the rest Somalis. What we are about to witness is surrender not for higher ideals but for failure to govern ourselves, for failure to stop the Judas amongst us selling us short as we put clan ahead of country, for letting a bunch of self seeking fraudsters claim lordship over us.

At personal level, I subscribe to Somaliland as a safety of my brethren from the tyranny of the South. I would not like to be one of those unburied bodies littering the streets of Mogadishu. I am not ready to be abused and victimized for aspiring for a Somaliweyn that will never truly come to be. I am not ready to join my 'brothers' in the South if that means I have to be ruled from the South by southerners.

Dear Sheikh Shariff, you may appoint my entire reer, leave alone clan, to your cabinet it will not dissuade me from my present conviction that Somaliland is and will remain independent from Southern tutelage either through peace with you or if need be with our blood. We have our deen, and similarity between what you practice and what I practice does not necessary mean that I should bow to your lordship. We may speak a language that is mutually intelligible but that does not mean I should take my commands from the South. I respect your efforts to pacify your lot but that should never entail my surrender to your 'government'.

Dear Sheikh, Somaliland my home, my refugee and my hope of freedom. And dear sheikh, desist from the current path you have taken. Appointing a man from the Diaspora to lure me will not work. The same strategy did not work before and will not work now.

He is irrelevant and will add no value to your administration other than help you fill your begging bowl. We know his kind and we value them as much as we value Gen. Morgan. If your hope was to look favorable in our collective eyes you have failed. I am almost starting to believe the rumors about you and your backers.

It time we are careful and vigilant against the encroachment of the Southern warlords into our political space. Anyone who jumps into the warlords' bandwagon should be described as it is fit to describe him – A TRAITOR.

Yusuf Miree, London

emperor_smld@yahoo.com

kolamist@googlemail.com

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