By Malkhadir Muhumed
Sunday, March 02, 2014
The worsening security situation in Somalia’s capital has prompted the country’s top leaders to pledge to arrest it, especially in the capital. Al Qaeda-linked militants stormed the highly protected seat of government on February 21.
Many Somalis, who tolerated the inefficiency of the previous transitional governments, are now angry about the insecurity in the country, with a lawmakers calling for President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to resign “because he’s failed to deliver on his promises of peace and development.”
Thousands of Somalis in the diaspora — including Mohamud Hirsi Abdulle, a Somali-Canadian who worked at the prime minister’s office and died in last Friday’s attack — returned to rebuild their country after President Mohamud, a former political activist, took the helm in 2012.
In response to Friday’s attack, President Mohamud promised “security changes,” saying that, “it is not propaganda. It’s a part of the campaign against Al Shabaab.”
Al Shabaab spokesman Ali Rage said the group wanted to kill President Mohamud or capture him.
READ: Somalia presidential palace hit by car bomb, gun attack
That attack “will not deflect us from our aim of eradicating Al Shabaab from this country,” said President Mohamud. “It will not change our minds. It will not frighten us. Instead, it will just embolden, harden us and encourage us as well as give us more confidence.”
But many are doubtful that the security situation in the country will change, especially in Mogadishu, which has recently experienced night clashes and mortar attacks between Al Shabaab and security forces.
“More will come,” warned Stig Jarle Hansen, a Norwegean scholar who has written a book on Al Shabaab.
Somalia’s current government, the first non-transitional government since the collapse of the country’s central government in 1991, has failed to harness the international outpouring of support it received after its establishment in 2012.
For instance, the government has been dealing with internal politics, like the Jubbaland administration — which it first rejected and then recognised. It is now grappling with calls to form an administration for southwestern regions.
But the most damaging interruption came when debilitating infighting erupted between the president and former prime minister Abdi Farah Shirdon; the dispute led to Mr Shirdon being fired through a parliamentary vote of no confidence.
Somali lawmaker Abdulatif Musse Nur said, “Nothing will improve as long as President Mohamud is in power,” warning that if he didn’t resign, he and other like-minded lawmakers would use their parliamentary powers to hold the president accountable.
“The source of the current problems facing the country is the president, who has usurped the powers of the prime minister,” said Mr Nur, allegations President Mohamud denies.
Urging “collective action” to “eliminate” Al Shabaab, Somalia’s Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed said he would set up a committee “to assess the strength and performance of security agencies, including the intelligence, the police and the military.”
“The aim of this committee is,” Mr Ahmed said in a statement, “is to issue recommendations on enhancing the readiness, responsiveness and effectiveness of the national security agencies.”
But Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamad, a Horn of Africa specialist who teaches history and political science at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, said Al Shabaab has infiltrated the Somali security forces, and that the government needs “serious vetting of its security apparatus” before taking other measures.