The Somaliland opposition party, Waddani, staged what the speakers termed as the second major coup within a week, Sunday, welcoming new politicians of ‘stature’ to its fold at the Ambassador Hotel.
Leading the new intake, today, was Ismail Hurre Buubaa, a Somaliland-born career politician who only so recently arrived from Mogadishu where he had been, until his move, an ardent advocate of a Somaliland union with Somalia despite the overwhelming support of Somalilanders to the restoration of their independence since May 1991.
Speaking at the reception made for him and the other gentlemen with him, including a former minister of Planning during the Udub years, Ali Sanyare, Mr. Buubaa said that their decision to join forces with Waddani was not going to be a mere “here we come, too” but that they will add their weight and experience behind the party’s quest to emerge a ‘first’ in the upcoming elections and beyond.
He said he and his friends were certain that they would be bale to contribute to an upgrade of the Party’s current ‘qualitative and managerial’ status.
Mr. Buubaa, however, said nothing about his true political beliefs.
Even today, that he was speaking at a podium in front of thousands of supporters of one of the two opposition parties of Somaliland, his Twitter account profile was flagging down Somaliland sovereignty and the 97% vote of Somalilanders to restore their afore-lost independence to Somalia in the national referendum of 2001.
His Profile states to all and sundry that he is: Former Minister of Finance, Somaliland, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs & Deputy PM, TFG, Somalia. Currently an advocate of a Two Somali States Resolution.
In other words, as he was there, today, at the Ambassador, here in Hargeisa the Capital of the Republic of Somaliland, that he still was “an advocate” of a Somaliland union with Somalia in a federal state: TWO SOMALI STATES RESOLUTION (Somaliland & Somalia).
Agitated by what they called the ‘Somaliweyn’ (Greater Somalia) clique joining Waddani, the young and educated who hailed from the same clans as those they objected to, staged a tyre-burning – but relatively contained – demonstration against them in the Ga’anta and Alamadaha areas just down the road of Ambassador Hotel where the welcoming ceremony was being held.
The demonstrators were shouting “we don’t want them”..”We don’t want Waddani’ burning the party standards in public.
The demonstrators represented young Somalilanders who have grown up, were educated and who had started families of their own and start-up businesses in a republic they called their own despite having been orphaned and their houses and properties destroyed by a regime toppled by the blood of their parents.
They were later dispersed by the police as the demonstration shaped up into something that could block the main thoroughfare leading to Egal International airport.
It was only in July this year that the overall Sultan of Somaliland and the chief traditional leader of the clan which Mr. Buubaa and Sanyare hailed from, Sultan Mohamed Abdulkadir, denounced a meeting they called for ‘Garhajis’ – their ethnic grouping.
The Sultan pointedly accused them of harboring anti-Somaliland principles which they wished to find new adherents for in the guise of a clan-meeting that neither he nor the other major traditional leaders of the family sanctions or were involved in as was the norm.
“We believe”, he said “that the ‘Somaliweyn’ politicians have something else up their sleeve”.
He so vehemently opposed the phenomenon a fact which led to an almost total failure of the project, resulting in a limp version of their dream conference.
However one looks at it, today’s event would augur ill for Waddani and especially at a time that Mr. Buubaa makes no bones of his belief in ‘Somaliweyn’ as is depicted in his Twitter profile above as it casts an ominous pall on a similar event scheduled for the week to officially welcome some ex-Kulmiye shots looking for greener pastures in Waddani.
