The above photo appearing on facebook generated thousands of comments. It was a surprise to the bulk of commenters that a Chairman of an opposition political party, a Muslim, and a man advanced in age, holds hands with an unwedded woman.
In this photo, Abdirahman Irro, the Chairman of Waddani party and the incumbent Speaker of the House of Representatives, holds hands with Fadumo Saeed, a widow, and one of his top aides at the party following her defection from UCID party – the second opposition political party in Somaliland.
Some of the commenters mistook the picture for a wedding photo, most likely intentionally to highlight their view of how the couple were laughing, showing happiness unbecoming of top party officials in such a compromising pose.
Some of them even got out of step to a degree they likened it to the Clinton-Lewinsky incident of 1998.
A Somaliland news website – halbeegnews.net, which published the story, stated that Somaliland religious clerics condemned the pose, and called it a blow on the face of Islamic religion.
Whatever the case might be, the picture is one that may linger in people’s minds for some time to come with all its question marks the least of which might be linked to the impropriety and misjudgment surrounding it.
