Reading from a pre-prepared statement, the newly appointed secretary for Information of Waddani opposition party, Abdirahman Yussuf Dualeh ‘Boobe’, today, blasted the government of Somaliland for not doing enough on the international front, and for not setting a time-lined political agenda for the talks it started with Somalia on February 2012.
The Secretary – a former Minister of Information for the incumbent government – said the government led by President Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud ‘Siilaanyo’ is lamentably lagging behind the expectations of its public on several areas.
For one, he said, the government used the talks with Somalia as ‘tourism opportunities’ and that the government has set no discernible policy on the continuation, usefulness or the absence of both which can convince the public and lay their trepidations to rest. He said the talks lack substance and focus and do not respond to Somalilanders’ expectations on sovereignty.
Mr. Boobe went to say that his party condemned state of the foreign department of Somaliland, criticizing it for closing almost all the diplomatic missions in the outside world and for appointing incompetent semi-literate personnel to others on nepotistic or political grounds and not by merit of their qualifications or experience. Mr. Boobe, on the other hand, made a very responsible observation on the communique that the IGAD foreign ministers released at the end of their one-day meeting in Mogadishu.
He pointed out that there was nothing new or alarming or threatening to Somaliland in the communiqué. He said that the first point, for instance, changed nothing about the de jure recognition the international community has accorded the Federal Somalia government or the de facto one the world grants Somaliland.
This observation of Mr. Boobe was seen by a great many of people as welcome addition to the usually hollow condemnations of opposition parties to all and everything relating directly or remotely to the government.
