Hiiraan Online

The logic says such candidates wield considerable influence in the current reconciliation process; they selected clan elders who are about to choose the members of parliament, that will be deciding the next president. The other logic behind this assumption is that these candidates may have more financial resources than other candidates because of their involvement with TFG financial corruption scheme (United Nation Monitoring group and World Bank Audit Report) and nothing can prevent them to buy votes.

The above statement or analysis is based on what scientist’s termpositive statement, it describes or explains asituationorfactand tends to be indifferent of the outcome. But in this article, I will be discussing what ought to be, by utilizenormative analysisor value judgment, and I will do my best to illustrate alternative course that can lead to a promising future. In other words, I will explain the characteristics of the ideal candidate who can best manage the complex transition, present realistic vision, able to collaborate as many disaffect stake holders, and help transform the current reconciliation framework of 4.5 which is based on obsolete and reductionist clan paradigm and elevate the present political discourse to a level that is intelligible and rational.

Transformational Leader                        

The ideal candidate must be transformational leader, who is competent to manage the transition to national unity government, rally the support of internal stake holders, while sustaining the momentum of international support, to build government capacity, improve security and reduce the reliance of African Union (AU) troops and Finally, discredit Al Shabab’s apocalyptic and extreme ideology that indoctrinate many dissatisfied youth and brain wash them to the point where they are motivated to kill as many innocent civilians as they can.

The existing framework for stabilization and capacity building, the so called “the road map” doesn’t present coherent strategic plan that creates incentives for political leaders to collaborate internal stakeholders including civil society groups, business, religious leaders, and the expatriates to improve government capacity and legitimacy. Furthermore, it also failed to define strategic goals, set performance indicators and timeframe to monitor any progress towards these strategic goals.

In addition, the other key component that is missing from the “road map” is that the various interests groups are not aligned to embrace common strategic goals. In other words, there is no incentive for African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to adopt exit strategy. Likewise, there is nothing in the “road map” that induces the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) officials to partner with civil society, business and other key stakeholders. Furthermore, African Union forces in Somalia get high quality training from United States government contractors, but they also receive higher pay than their counterparts back home. The average income of African Union solder is $1,000 per month.

Moreover, one particular incentive that works against exit strategy for AMISOM is that, the defense budgets of the countries that contribute their troops are indirectly subsidized by the United States and other Donor countries. Yet, this open-ended financial support has not been tied to their performance and no timetable to guide the mission. As a result, the African leaders who send their troops to Somalia, will not act against those interests, and no way will they advocate speedy process to replace their troops with Somali security forces. However the task of the next president is to devise a coherent framework that creates numerous incentives and aligns the interest of internal and external stakeholders with common strategic goal.

As the recent literature on nation building and case studies in Iraq and Afghanistan confirmed, the only viable route to achieving stabilization and state building is to work out a process owned and lead by internal stakeholders and also make the first item of any stabilization and reconstruction agenda to train, discipline and finance local security forces to validate this ownership and slowly reduce the presence of foreign troops. Yet, the current debate on the “road map” doesn’t mention anything that suggests such ownership. Instead, there is general feeling of alienation and despair among the populace, which preceded the signing of “Kampala Accord” in June 19, 2011 that informally dissolved the TFG parliament. In every international gathering on Somalia, there has been strong advocacy for AMISOM funding, and no discussion for the strategic objective, which is to train, finance, and retain national army and police force.

Visionary leader

Also the ideal candidate must be a visionary leader who can communicate alternative vision based on shared understanding of the Somalia’s protracted conflict, and present comprehensive solutions to the multidimensional, multifaceted and interconnected problems of security, interference of neighboring states, extremism, rampant government corruption, cronyism and address the lack of cross-sector collaboration that hindered the TFG effectiveness. 

The main task of the visionary leader is to transform the current thinking that continue to perceive Somali’s chronic dysfunction as “technical problem” instead of “adaptive challenge” - to use Ronald Heifetz’s terms - and stockpiled a huge inventory of “technical solutions” that are disconnected from the reality on the ground, and when applied, create more problems than they are able to contain. This led to many conspiracy theories among the Somalis and suspicions of any foreign interference. For the past twenty years, Somalia has been trying and exhausted using technical solutions that are intended to mitigate the symptoms (not the root causes), imposed artificial structures, top down processes and shallow government institutions that lack any substance.

Seeing the Somali’s political crisis asadaptive challengeentails rethink your perception, constantly revaluate your believes and values and challenge the outdated conventional wisdom. When the nature of the problem is adaptive challenge, technical solutions will not do the job, but it is possible that the problem may disappear for a while, but will not go away completely. Therefore, Somalia’s unabated crisis is classic case ofadaptive challengesresistingtechnical solutions.

Adaptive challengesdemand multidimensional and holistic approach that goes at the root cause of the problem. When addressing the lack of security and instability in Somalia, the goal is not acquiring foreign troops or relying on military solution, or determining the winners and losers, or empowering incompetent politicians. However, adaptive challenges require deferent kind of remedies such as fostering culture of collaboration, transparent process, public deliberation and generating grass root support for “the road map.”

However, one such presidential candidate that understands the complexity of the task ahead, and not only has the right vision and strategy, but also practiced these leadership qualities in his twenty years involvement in the areas of humanitarianism, education, peace building and reconciliation is Dr Abdulraman M Abdullahi aka (Badiyow). The candidate has a confidence on the potential power of ordinary people to make a difference in their neighborhood and communities, if basic conditions are provided, such giving equal chance to competent and credible leaders, minimum security and dispute resolution mechanisms, as opposed to the TFG leaders attitude that continue to wait marshal plan-like projects to alleviate all Somali problems.

View days ago I visited Mogadishu and interviewed the principle of one of the many schools that Dr Badiyow founded in Mogadishu, called Mujama Umul Qura (formerly known Bondhere Middle School) the principle recalled his first encounter with Dr Badiyow in 1993 when he returned from Canada and started this school. The principle advised Dr Badiyow to wait until the security situation in Mogadishu stabilizes, “but Dr Badiyow challenged me by saying if you tell me when the situation will stabilize I will be happy to wait.” The principle also discussed the school performance and higher rate of alumni how received their Masters and PhDs from overseas universities.

Don’t Expect Miracle Our Actions Matter

Finally, it makes no sense what so ever to speculate on the question of who can win the presidency, which inherently implies that, the candidates with most money will buy votes. Instead we must concentrate all of our energy to examine the credibility and leadership quality of the candidates. We must avoid being passive spectators who gave in to the pressures of those who continue underestimate our competence and advocate maintaining the status quo is the best option. We should mobilize our financial and intellectual resources to counter this undemocratic, less-transparent, unfair, and ill advised process called “the road map,” by supporting a candidate that has a more than twenty years record of public service and executed his duties with distinction, that candidate is Dr Badiyow. I believe that, regardless of what seasonal political commentators or the so the called “the experts” say, the stability in Somalia will not be determined by the effort of international community, but the collaboration of our positive effort to achieve our peace and stablity, and break the vicious cycle of chronic dysfunction and stupidity. As the Quran says “God will not change the condition of people, unless they change what is in themselves.”