Somalia: PM Roble boots out Farmajo’s right-hand man to assert control

FILE PHOTO: Somali PM ROBLE

MOGADISHU, Somalia - The sudden announcement by the Prime Minister’s office on Friday to sack the chief of staff of Somalia’s controversial spy service, the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), has caused seismic waves across the political spectrum and caught insiders by surprise.

Officially a chief staff but acting as the de facto deputy director-general of NISA, Abdullahi Kulane has long cast an ominous cloud over Somalia’s political and security stability ever since his sharp ascendency during the Farmaajo administration.

Today’s dismissal of Kulane is the first indication that the Prime Minister, who has faced persistent internal and external pressures to exercise independence, might have finally acted to assert control over his government.

A diaspora returnee from Minnesota, Kullane has in recent months acted as the shadow governor of Gedo and a key campaign manager for the reelection of Somalia’s beleaguered President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo. In Gedo, Kullane led Villa Somalia’s war to subvert and ultimately bring to an end the authority of the Kismayo-based Jubbaland administration. He succeeded, but not before coming under international condemnation and displacing thousands of residents.

Kullane also created and commanded the controversial Duufaan militias criticized for engineering instability in Gedo and Mogadishu. In recent days, Kullane and his director Fahad Yassin were implicated by the family of Ikran Tahlil, a NISA female agent who went missing in Mogadishu in June, for abducting their daughter as captured on CCTV cameras.

Just on July 21, the Prime Minister issued a warning to security officials not to hinder the free movement of politicians and other citizens during the elections. When Kullane barred the scheduled departure of Osman Moalim, former governor of the Gedo region, the prime minister’s reaction was swift. It ended the political career of a man who, in recent years, has become the president’s most trusted aide and a reliable troubleshooter.

The removal of Kullane has long been a key demand by the political opposition and the federal member states, who saw him as an agent of chaos. They will welcome his departure but are unlikely to relent on their pressures on the PM to change the command of NISA, including the reclusive and influential Islamist Fahad Yassin, who leads the agency and has underwritten Kulane’s most egregious actions.

Politically, today’s unceremonious sacking of Kullane will be a blow, perhaps fatal, for the reelection campaign of the acting president. More importantly, today’s events signal a separation process for Roble, who has tethered his political fate to that of the president and might signal a necessary course correction for the country as it heads to elections.

A contested election outcome is expected to trigger sustained armed confrontations similar to what was seen in late April this year when opposition forces routed the pro-Farmaajo wing of the military. Friday’s event offers the prime minister a fleeting opportunity to deliver credible elections and avert the possibility of rigging the election with the potential to send the country spiraling into a civil war.

GAROWE ONLINE