Puntland that Came into a Crossroad Oblivion by Its Sovereigns and Federal Government that had a day trip to Damascus and came back

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main therefore “Never send to know for whom the Pell tolls, it tolls for Thee” John Donne; for whom the Pell tolls

It appears, nowadays, the issue of Puntland’s pecking order for the division and sharing of power by the clans kicked off its birth out of the ashes of the central government’s demise is being shaken by a tremor on the elevated Richter scale. Subsequent to the election of the current president and taking over the running of the affairs of the state, the dissent and disgruntlement by a large sector of Puntland stakeholders in its birth are gathering impetus, marked by unheard-of events that are happening in a spectacular fashion.

The foremost of which has been the eviction of the chair of the parliament by brute force, who happened to be Warsangeli Harti equated upon the job. After fielding enquiries on what transpired for the president and his close-knit clique, who are handsomely pretty much ruling the roost in Puntland administration, to unceremoniously topple the chair of the parliament converged into a larger stream of his refusal to work with the president in a style that has been mellowing since the state’s inception: the executives, namely the president, to bank-role the chair to subsequently advance the president’s policy and programs in the parliament. They have done so to their detriment, not knowing the issue of the federal government, which metastasically featured in a fairly strong fashion, as it used to be prior to its permanency in the international community.

This, the federal government phased in the political theatre, caught the Puntland administration, which used to enjoy the privilege of being the only functioning organ of what used to be Somalia, apart from Somaliland, which unilaterally rescinded its unification with Somali south, flat-footed. The current federal government is in the ebb tide of its term, and during the time in office, doggedly worked its socks off to transfer power into Mogadishu come hell or high water. The currently existing international recognition of the federal government, particularly the present prime minister, who enjoys unreservedly the sanction of the president, gives the impression of being a peak for the hard-done-by clans and sub- clans, according to the opinions one gathers, who feel their status among the federal states, of which Puntland is the vanguard, is compromised to the level of second-class citizens in their ranks.

A large sway of those clans and sub-clans who happened to have been, since its inception, faithfully under the tutelage of Puntland, in their discourse, when engaged in a conversational debate, strongly feel deep disillusionment towards the Puntland project willy-nilly. The thrust of their argument homes in on the accepted rotational triangulation of the top office of the land by, if one lances the boil, three siblings of Mohamoud Saleeban.

The rest of Puntland’s stakeholders, without prejudice, have strong sentiment that the above-accepted modus operandi is no longer sustainable, and, as aforementioned earlier, the Federal Government’s juxtapositing itself in the auditorium played a catalyst to embolden their endeavour in challenging the state of affairs of the Puntland Federal Government.

What has happened? What went wrong for those clans and sub-clans to strongly express doubts about the Puntland project? Before we answer these questions, one has to examine where we have been and where we are going. These queries will take one thirty years back and the lack of co-existence on the parts of Somali clan-based factions of the day. This reminds one of John Donne’s (1572-1631) line ‘For whom the bell tolls: “Remember we are all one – all the same.” Donne gave the impression that whatever affects one affects us all. In here, what went detrimentally awry in the ensuing mayhem in which, in the spur of the moment, clan-based insurgencies such as USC (note: there had been several

versions of USC in here), SPM and SSDF turned guns on one another is somewhat peculiar and difficult to interpret. As a result, the bitter and pernicious clan-based civil strife in which each one had been trying to defeat the other, in addition to social instability to date, resulted in unimaginable hunger, illness and death. In the end, protracted civil conflict between warring clan-based factions enhanced the solidarity of the main sub-clans in order to stave off the allied clan groupings fighting from the other side of the divide. Eventually, in a very short space of time, the main clans that make up Somali ethnography, namely Hawiye, Darood, Dir and Digil & Mirifle (though featured at a later stage of the chapter), gravitated into their stronghold/regions.

To cut a long story short, Somalis have found themselves divided according to clan lines for almost thirty years now, and the international community has employed all the tools in the trade of reconciliation and diplomacy to first cease the hostility and then reintegrate Somalis into one nation- state they were prior to the civil war to no avail. In that endeavour, the international community changed strategy at the Mbeghatti reconciliation plenary by introducing the federalism project. By and large it worked, and, for the first time, the Somali transitional federal president moved into Villa Somalia. The rest is academic.

Now, seven years into its permanency, and the second president in his final year of the term, the fissure between Puntland and Jubaland administrations and the federal government is getting wider by the day. The bone of contention, from the outset, in general, is to do with a confusion created by the lack of a permanent and ratified referendum constitution that defines the corresponding roles and dockets of the federal government and federal states, respectively. A good example of the matter is the issue of the education that pivots around “who legally issues the certificate for the Puntland secondary school leavers: Puntland or the Federal Government

Looking from a different perspective, Somalia has been going through, with heavy steps, stages of which the latest is when the federal government has been recognised as a permanent one, starting with Hassan Sheikh’s tenure. That, a country turned a corner. New federal member states featured in the fray and consequently compromised Puntland’s unique status as the sole functioning member state in federal Somalia. The strange thing is Puntland administration failed to react and readjust its political locus accordingly. The biggest looming large matter on the horizon has been the longed-for project of democratisation. Puntland should have been proactive in getting one step ahead of the game to consolidate its legitimacy among its stakeholders as well as the international community arena by doing away with the abhorred and persistent custom of power revolving around clan quotas in selecting the members of the parliament. For this reason, this modality disenfranchises a large sway of the sub-clans not to ever vie for the role. In addition, the top jobs of the land are reserved for specific sub-clans.

In addition, it was 1998 when those clans celebrated the installation of Puntland as an interim administration and for the elected president to prepare, in his three-year term, the electoral process and for the people ultimately to go to the polling stations in order to elect their representatives in the parliament and the next president. Rather, he made an extension for himself, and that did cost life and limb. He crushed marked adversaries and extended his stay for another term. His subsequent two successors extended their respective tenures of staying in the office, contrary to the provisional charter later ratified in a plenary, to four and five years, respectively. Furthermore, to the incredulity of the rest of the stakeholders of the Puntland project, all were Majeerteen Mohamoud Saleeban. Adding insult to injury, the succession adjusted itself in a rotational fashion which proved difficult to break. It’s over twenty years now, and the prospect of migrating into a democratic process for the plebeians to elect their parliament representatives and the president is getting ever more elusive by the day.

Then came the permanent federal government, as alluded to above, which served as a beacon of hope for the rest, excluding non-Mohamoud Saleeban, if you like, stakeholders to come out of the cycle. It’s in the public domain that those clans and sub-clans who are the major investors of the Puntland state also have representatives in the parliament as well as the council of ministries of the Federal Government. They serve as a conduit between the federal government and their constituents. Rumours had it that the ministry of planning of the FG, who happens to belong to Warsangeli, made some effort to open a constituent surgery in his clan base in vain.

Altruistic Message to the president of Puntland

The Puntland administration, namely the president, is obliged to first get serious about the need for the people to elect their political representatives by genuinely and urgently kick-starting the democratisation process. The current president has shown a uniquely unprecedented and commendable undertaking, in comparison to his predecessors, by nominating the Transitional Puntland Electoral Commission (TPEC) in the first year of his term. Nevertheless, the majority of people have their atavistic fear of his intention as a fleeting exercise; the incumbent tries to first please the international donors and, secondly, to stave off any criticism and dissent from within.

Therefore, clear and concrete steps must follow the TPEC nomination, of which the major litmus test is first to set up the constitutional court within a month, followed by preparing the electoral register and starting the local government elections. One believes if engaged with individuals with utmost integrity and knowledge on the matter, it’s doable in a fairly short space of time: two years ± one year.

Secondly, the president ought to revisit the governmental institutions, though clan allocations are ubiquitously inescapable, and restructure by first making a complete overhaul of the incompetent Council of Ministers and most of the director generals (DGs) whose technical incapability is mind- boggling and crippled the public institutions. It’s evidently and without a doubt clear Puntland blunders to make their case in the national and international arenas due to the incapability of these individuals (namely ministers and DGs), with the exception of a few.

A perfect case is Puntland’s secondary-school leavers certificate shenanigans. One skimmed through the provisional Federal Government Constitution, which clearly states in Article 54 regarding allocation of powers:

‘The allocation of powers and resources shall be negotiated and agreed upon by the Federal Government and the Federal Member States (pending the formation of Federal Member States), except in matters concerning: (A) Foreign Affairs` (B) National Defence` (C) Citizenship and Immigration` (D) Monetary Policy, which shall be within the powers and responsibilities of the federal governmen’t. One wonders, in the first place, how on earth the certification of Puntland secondary leavers got into the hands of the federal government, as the aforesaid article 50 clearly specifies that it’s not in the itemised dockets that fall into the federal government’s hands. It’s a matter tilted into the federal st ates according to the overwhelming federal countries throughout the region and the world. Furthermore, Puntland, according to its constitution, reserves the right to retain its autonomy and unilaterally runs its affairs until such time as the federal constitution is ratified in a referendum and harmonised with that of Puntland, as Article 140 stipulates.

The above queries vindicate one’s argument that ‘something is extremely wrong on the part of Puntland, and the negligence pertinent in the ministry of education is not unique. Rather, it’s deep- rooted throughout the government institutions. Obviously, heads have to roll in here. In other words, someone must take the responsibility, or is it part of the bigger picture that the Puntland government ship, after 21 years of existence, is headed into an iceberg? It has been substantiated that the Ministry for Education of the Federal Government took their case to the international community as well as those countries that donate higher education scholarships and subsequently shut the doors on Puntland by convincing benefactors not to give any accreditations to anyone who doesn’t own a Federal Government certificate. What on earth negated Puntland’s Ministry of Education, or other government ministries for that matter, from endeavouring to present their cases to those countries and the international community? The other social issues are in the same predicament that the federal government handsomely succeeded in diverting all international donations and programmes, from education, healthcare, infrastructure, governance, etc., through them.

If Somalia decided and got serious about embracing federalism by researching the federal countries throughout the world, it would be a universally accepted matter that the likes of agriculture and fishing, industrial relations, community services, sport and recreation, consumer affairs, police, prisons, schools, hospitals, conservation and environment, roads, railways and public transport, public works, and emergency services come under the social issues that fall in the docket of the federal states. After all, the executive branch (namely, the president and his prime minister) of the federal government must come to terms with it.

Unbidden Advice to the Federal Government Executives.

Without further ado, Somalia getting a permanent, internationally accepted federal government has been a long and hard slog; don’t, for the sake of petty point scoring based on clan animosity doctrine, ruin it. It’s a fragile one striving to get legitimacy from the disillusioned and separated, by malevolent and protracted civil strife, Somali people. It goes without saying that Somalis are divided according to clan- hostile borders/lines. Some of the scholars equated the Somali ever-lasting problem as ‘an inescapable and irresolvable existential curse’.

The federal government is by and large nominal. It may hustle the international community by making its fleeting legitimacy count to score some points with their political adversaries. That, ultimately and spectacularly, backfires big time for those individuals who are at the helm of the top job; that is, the president and the prime minister.

As a consequence, it further alienates already dissatisfied clans and sub-clans that existed as federal states. It’s only one year or less left for your term in office; make the most of it by showing courage and leadership that, at least, triggers a trajectory for reconciliation by first defusing the hostility between you and other federal states such as Puntland and Jubaland. And secondly, bring the opposing groups in Galmudug by reversing the idea of siding with one group and alienating others.

The asymmetrical policy only pours explosives into what is already simmering fire and inadvertently contributes to promulgating disharmony and ultimately dashing away any hope of reconstituting the Somali nation- state. Let it go on the social issues and any other public matters; Article 54, regarding allocation of powers, did not reserve for the federal government. In the end, inevitably, these issues will be the matter for the federal states to handle in their social affairs like any other federal country in this day and age.

Finally, if the competing forces, now transcending the prolonged predicament Somalis have been in, another level in the names of the federal government and federal states, do not show a sign of maturity – com-serenity – the country will plunge further down into the abyss where everybody, regardless of their affiliations, loses.

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”; therefore, “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” John Donne: For Whom the Bell Tolls (1572-1631)