His Excellency the President of the Republic of Somaliland, Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud “Siilaanyo, today, returned to the capital, Hargeisa, after a short stay in the United Arab Emirates where he underwent a minor appendicitis surgery.
The President, in his mid-seventies, went back and forth on several occasions to the UAE for health-related consultations that started speculations on his ability to stay in office until the presidential elections slated for November 13, 2017.
Opposition parties, specially Waddani, raised alarming theories on public and on social media about the severity of the president’s health complaints. Some party aspirants went to as far as a stage where they accused of the rest of the government of concealing a ‘confirmed’ demise of the president under the surgery blade.
The opposition’s alarming announcements and insinuations were not only confined to this latest trip of the President to the UAE but extended back to other trips he made to the UK earlier.
At the end of each trip, the President strode back to office.
Due to the scanty information on the trips the president made to these two countries, Waddani’s speculations always gained some credence with a large swathe of the population which only lasted until the President’s return.
Regrettably, during the short absences of the president, the Presidency Spokesman, Mr. Deyr, contributed to the planted doubts.
Mr. Deyr invariably held meaningless, uninformative, meandering press conferences during which he stuttered and stammered on words that went back again and again to the President’s health where he should have assuaged the growing doubts.
Adan Dhoollayare, a former minister and one of the top, unassigned leaders of Waddani party, did not miss the opportunity, today, to castigate the spokesman on the seemingly silly repetitions on the President’s fitness to rule until his tenure ends.
“Do not belittle the President’s integrity by always referring to him as ‘walking on his own legs”, Adan stated,
“We never said that the President was carried down from the plane,” he added.
