Somaliland Suffers From Political Immaturity

A poet was once asked by a king, “Who is the greatest king in the world?”
“He who rules his people aright,” replied the poet.
“And how may a king rule his people aright?”, the king wanted to know.
“By protecting the “right” and punishing the “wrong”, the poet said.
The king got his body up and said, “Ahem, Ahem.”

Why the poet was picked out from all other people and asked questions by the king is a question that needs an aristocratic answer.

Poets are gifted artists and great composers, who are culturally obsessed with the ins and outs of life — always expressing overtly and interpreting publicly the events that shape the conditions with which humans encounter.

Poets always criticize what is ethically and humanely questionable. They stand for what is truly just and right and try, to the best of their ability, to stop illusions that put bad leaders into positions that keep them grounded.

The king knew how he ruled his people, but he was trying to reach one thing: “poet’s political awareness.” That is how the poet judged the quality of the king’s rulng behavior.

Political awareness is the ability to talk about social ills that exist in public services and identify where those who rule the people are wrong and then disseminate the wrongs in the ruling behavior to public.

The first thing to understand from poet’s answers is his sensitivity to public policy —
the way the poet saw that leaders should maintain law and order and address faithfully the needs of their citizens.

Public policy is how a government deals directly with day-to-day public problems through different actions from different directions and disciplines. In principle, public policy is precisrly a “public problem” that needs
an urgent government response.

The credibility of any government is primarily revealed by what it does about public problems particularly when the moment is hard. The lack of today’s realism in Kulmiye’s political vision will cost the credibility of tomorrow.

Of course tomorrow’s credibility could easily be measured by checking out if Somaliland current administrative executive branches follow energetically elegant and efficient guiding principles when dealing with a bundle of public pressing problems in a manner consistent with the constitution and institutional commitments.

News papers report that Somaliland has celebrated 27 years of its existence as an independent state in 2018. But at 27 everyone has the face that no one actually deserves.

Whether public policy resembles the reality most Somalilanders share is an issue that doesn’t arise. But pictures — of people living on pavements and children turning into old men before reaching their youth — tell us that Somaliland has not yet become mature principally and politically.

Probably this begs the questions: What is it that caused and created Somaliland’s political immaturity? What is holding back the progress in Somaliland country and preventing the people from realizing their full potential? Which one of these factors – bad governance, corruption, and tribalism — do we realize that political immaturity evolves from?

Political maturity is not measured by who one is and was, or what one’s age is, but by who one has become as a politician. Political maturity is built by experience and acquisition of knowledge, the ability to identify the areas in which a nation is weak and needs urgent response and remedy.

Politicians become politically mature when they take more responsibilities, when they take not only care of themselves, but also improve others’ lives, when they accept what comes their way and endure it. They become politically mature not only when they start speaking big things, but rather when they start understanding small things. They may not be able to control all situations, but they can control their attitude and how they deal with different situations. That’s when political maturity and being responsible occur.

The factors that practically hindred Somaliland political maturity are neither corruption nor tribalism nor bad governance in the first place.
The poor mentality of leadership — how politicians in power think, act, plan, propose, and proceed to take policies and plans — is evidently what prevented Somaliland from being politically mature.

In fact Somaliland political immaturity stems essentially and fundamentally from a failure of leadership and bad governance and corruption are just the manifestation of bad and poor leadership.

All saints give testimony to the truth that without integrity and honest effort, no one ever wins the honour. To be well aware of the real agendas of those who govern Somaliland and the awareness of those citizens that are governed, ask a post graduate student, “who is your role model?
“Let me ask my chief which one our clan can elect to this position”, he/she would say.
Ask an intellectual the same question,” and he would say, “What is role model”, as if he is an illiterate who neither writes nor reads.
Ask a member of Somaliland parliament, “Whom you work for?”, and he would reply, “I work for my family”, astonishingly proving his inability to remember that he represents the people that elected him.
Ask Somaliland minister the same question and he would say “the president.” Remember that Colonel Muse Biixi told to his cabinet, “I am elected by the people and you are appointed by me.”
Ask Colonel Muse Biixi, “what are your national plans and policies”, and he would say, without any fuss, “to eliminate the opposition parties before they eliminate me.”

A lot of concerned members of the public are embarrassed with such low show of morals and mentality and are now shying away from hearing or listening to such irresponsible agendas and political immaturity that Kulmiye ruling party has demonstrated and still continues to display as a winning attitude.

Leadership starts with an adult supervision. It starts with basics of moral responsibility, commitments and capabilites to punish evil and ill will that hurt the rights and respect of humanity. It starts with the ability to identify the expertise and the know-how that could, by delivering what is promised, get the country out from where it is to where it has not been.

From what we have seen Kulmiye ruling behavior since the year 2010, to exclude from the power whoever has a concern for nationhood is a construct reality. It is as if Kulmiye’s bottom line policy is to rob and
ruin Somaliland.

The immaturity that now exists in governance is an issue of great concern to all. Somaliland needs modern, transformative and wise leaders who must cast aside their pettiness and childishness and adopt a more mature approach to politics and governance.

The two Colonels, Muse Biixi and Mohamed Kahin, are basing their political narrative of leadership on what had existed in Siilaanyo legacy and they seem happy to be living in the past. But they have not realized that their political narrative which primarily focuses on solutions in that period is not the answer to today’s complex problems.

The bad news is that the Colonels believe that they can fool the public and even think that all people are on their own watch instead of their being on peoples’ watch and that no one is able to understand their hidden aims and agendas.

The saddest part of Kulmuye leadership is selfishness coupled with a mindless agenda obsessed with the idea of ‘us and them,’ which is really a no-win situation, whether it’s tribal, traditional, cultural, or political.

Politics is not a useless argument. Rather it is a commitment and a credibility that go hand in hand. We, therefore, need to proceed in a methodical and organised way. Sustained commitment is required. We need excellence, honesty, and integrity that come from exercising moral responsibility, accountability and transparency.

Unless we get rid of ignorant, arrogant and incompetent leaders, root out every trace of nepotism, love of power, profiteering and black marketing that have spoiled the good name of this great country in recent times, we will not be able to raise the standards of efficiency in administration and in the production and distribution of the necessary goods of life.

By:Jama Falaag
Hargeisa, Somaliland