By Mukhtar M. Ibrahim, Hiiraan Online
Friday, December 31, 2010
Minneapolis, MN (HOL) - The Prime Minister of Somalia Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed spoke to the members of the Somali community in Minnesota via teleconference Thursday night from Mogadishu in a packed Safari Restaurant meeting hall.
Mohamed, who is a Somali-American, from Buffalo, New York, was elected as the prime minister of Somalia three months ago. Somali Minnesotans were the first to endorse his nomination before the parliament approved him.
Dr. Saeed Fahia, the executive director of the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota, said the prime minister wanted to update the community about the situation on the ground and give a chance the community to ask him questions. Since Somali Minnesotans we’re the first to throw their support behind him, Fahia said the prime minister wants to listen to them and “want their advise.”
Mohamed told the community that his main priority is to improve the security of the capital, Mogadishu, which is the epicenter of the nearly two decades of anarchic violence.
Mohamed said his first 100 days is to clean the streets of Mogadishu from Al Shabab, which is staunchly opposing the Transitional Federal Government, or TFG. He emphasised that since he has only eight months left before the mandate of the TFG expires, he wants to start a reconciliation in Central Somalia
Mohamed praised the Somali army for their resilience to defend the government from Al Shabab without receiving any pay for months. He said he wants to pay the soldiers and said he already started giving them their first month salary.
“The only way to defeat Al Shabab is to give the soldiers their due,” Mohamed said.
The government has come under criticism for not paying its soldiers after some of them have defected to the insurgent militias.
The prime minister was asked the death of Bashir Ahmed Abdi, a Minnesota businessman and lawyer who was shot in Mogadisho one month ago.
Mohamed said the case in still under investigation and did not elaborate more. He requested from the community to pray for him.
Hirsi Baasey of Minneapolis said he thinks that this government offers a new hope for Somalia because “most of the ministers are educated and know how the world works.”
Hussein Ali, a senior biology major at the University of Minnesota, said he came to learn more about the prime minister. He said he believes that Mohamed has a good chance of improving the situation in Somalia based on his educational and leadership skills.
Mohamed has aught leadership skills, project management and conflict resolution at Erie Community College in the city of Buffalo, and he has master’s degree in political science from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He was a Somali diplomat and worked in the Somali Embassy in Washington.
“I believe he could start applying good leadership principles that others could follow,” Ali said.
Mukhtar M. Ibrahim is a senior journalism student at the University of Minnesota.