The presidency of Somalia’s Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo is only eight months old but already his administration faces its first crisis - and it is one of their own making.
For a country that has experienced years of civil war, division and instability, one would imagine that the greatest challenges facing Somalia’s new administration would be internal. But nothing is ever straightforward in Somalia. So it is that the first real test for President Farmaajo has been sparked by the announcement made last week by the foreign minister of neighbouring Ethiopia that Somali authorities had “played a facilitation role” in the capture of Abdikarin Sheikh Muse.
Muse is a member of a liberation movement in the Ogaden region, an almost entirely ethnically Somali area ceded to Ethiopia in the colonial era, and ever since the source of near constant tension and numerous wars in the region.
The long history of animosity between the two countries makes the involvement of Somalia in the apprehension of a man wanted by Ethiopia notable; but the details have made it an outrage in Somalia. Muse has long been a resident in Mogadishu and, though heavily involved in the Ogaden liberation movement, is thought to have been born in Somalia. The country’s constitution expressly forbids the extradition of Somali citizen to foreign countries.
To add to the potential illegality of Somalia’s involvement in the arrest, one has to consider the platform on which candidate Farmaajo ran his campaign. The leader of a party founded as recently as 2012, Farmaajo’s background was modest compared to many of his rivals. Without the establishment credentials, his popularity was instead based on his strong nationalism, and in particular a frostiness, not to say hostility, to Ethiopia. This provided Farmaajo a unique selling point when compared to incumbent president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s perceived cosiness with the government in Addis Ababa.