Somalia: Sanity must come back for Southwestern state formation process

By: Abdulkadir Suleiman 

The Regional State formation process in Southwestern Somalia has come under enormous challenge than ever predicted. A new confrontation emerged as far as the endeavor of making the process inclusiveness, fair and transparency among the many stakeholders in the region is concerned. The confrontation is within the proponents of the idea of the Three-regions State formation.  The conference agenda was radically altered soon after the International delegation led by Ambassador Nichalos Kay along with the leaders of the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) opened the conference and left the town on 28 October. The mishandling process of the conference prompted Speaker of the House of the People, Mohamed Sheikh Osman Jawari and FGS Prime Minister to intervene the situation and at the same time call the delegated politicians back to Mogadishu for either new considerations or for possible replacement.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Speaker Jawari together encouraged the 360 delegation to steer the conference in a manner of where all the stakeholders in the region assent whereby concurrently they are making sure that the dismantled rival camp politicians of the Six-regional State formation are on board. However, opportunistic politicians immediately hijacked the process and the strategy laid down by the FGS leaders were thrown away. In the next morning through confusion and in a speedy procedure, the delegation was said to have elected a chairperson given the fact that the selected delegation were not even systematically registered and their Identification Cards (IDs) were not printed. Additionally, significant number of contracted individuals, not the appointed delegation by the Malaks, were deployed in the hall in well  before  the arrivals of the legitimate ones in an attempt to manipulate the election result. Accordingly, the Chairperson was elected in a maximum absolute majority, (340 out of 360), however no independent  observer can confirm the result. They also planned on the same day to start the endorsement of the draft  Charter of the State, nonetheless, the time has run out against their wishes.  Apparently, the opportunistic politicians already designated their mouthpiece and therefore were blocking the chance of emerging competent candidates.    

These unprecedented developments categorically annoyed decent politicians from the region including Mohamed Sheikh Osman Jawar, Speaker of the House of the People and he consequently supported the PM's letter concerning the call he extended to the two members of his administration who  were previously assigned to accomplish the effort of establishing the regional state and represent the FGS  -  Ibrahim Isack Yarow and Abdullahi Hussein Ali are the two figures ordered to arrive in Mogadishu for consultations according to the letter. The two are respectively deputies of the Ministry of National Security and the Ministry of  Defense. 

In the line of the above mentioned facts, We, the concerning parties of those regions, are affectionately calling those cynic politicians not to inflict further damage on  those communities  who have already suffered enough under severe circumstances. They just need your kind support by effectively completing the administration they deserve to fully participate it. They neither need further political turmoil nor social upheavals. We strongly persuade those politicians to respectfully abide the Speaker's detailed prerequisite of the conference, and inspire them to utilize their utmost wisdom through reconciliation, cooperation and collective vision toward the future. We also firmly support the effort of Speaker Jawari to turn the conference into its supposed way of by bringing all the stakeholders on board in an effort of reconciling the affected communities.

Last but not least, we call the International Community as well as other principal stakeholders who may likely have stake in the maneuver of state formation process to align their agendas to those of the Speaker.  Any attempt to bypass the procedure rightly and correctly spelled by the respected elder would likely backfire and impede the critical political targets to be a achieved in 2016.

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