A press release produced yesterday by Wadajir party, an opposition party whose presidential candidate was the embattled politician and former minister Abdirahman Abdishkur has called on the international community to rescue the country before it goes back into turmoil once again by holding the Somali government accountable in adhering to the constitution, human rights, freedom of assembly and speech.
The statement seen by Goobjoog News, initially touched on the unpalatable reminiscence of the military regime that ruled Somalia from 1969 to 1991 that the current administration wants to repeat the same historical dictatorship through what the party termed as power abuse by the executive, corruption and media manipulations, corrupting members for the parliament and interfering with the justice system.
On the power abuse by the Executive, the party mentioned the recent arrest and subsequent arrest of former presidential candidate in 2016 and one time minister for planning Abdirahman Abdishakur who is also the party leader by violating the constitution of not having an arrest warrant issued by a court of a law.
"Executive power misuse on the recent arrest and imprisonment of former minister of planning, presidential candidate in 2016 and current leader of Wadajir (The Unity) party Mr Abdirahaman Abdishakur, putting aside the procedural irregularities claimed by his legal team, is [was] in jail because the President wanted” read the statement.
In the same breath, they pointed out the illegal misuse of state machinery especially the national intelligence and security agency (NISA) against political opponents and prompting illegal searches against members of the Somali parliament by ignoring the special immunity they possess under Article 70 for the House of People and Article 78 for the Upper House under the provincial constitution.
The statement also raised corruption and media manipulations by the federal government suffocating the free press by bribing media outlets to play to their tune while at the same denying the opposition of fair coverage.
The party also claims a record number of 1000 youths recruited by the government to spread government actions and attack opposite ideas in the social media. The Wadajir party precisely claimed in their statement that donor funds were used to finance these youths. "Recruiting over 1,000 youth to advocate for government action and attack opposing ideas in the social media and other media outlets. These young recruits were finance[d] by the donor community (World Bank)” said the statement.
They exposed an allegation that civil group among them the Islamic scholars and youth groups are manipulated to the advantage of the government through financial support and provision of security to them.
They party alleges in their statement that the government corrupts members of the parliament by creating a special payroll in OOP [a financial terminology that stands for "Out Of Pocket”] of more than 100 MPs which they claim their names contained in a list that is circulated by the media.
Another accusation mentioned in the statement included government’s interference in the justice system by pressuring and interfering with the judiciary with extra workload like the utilization of the attorney general and NISA to execute illegal imprisonments and sacking them when they are seen to be acting against the interest of the state. A case in point was the firing of the deputy attorney general in late December 2017. "Use of attorney general and NISA to perform illegal imprisonments.”
The party delved into further information regarding the fragile system in Somalia that was largely put in place with the help of the international community in the past one decade.
The urgently posed two points to be implemented before the country slides back into chaos.
First they called on the governments of US, EU and UK, African Union, Amisom, IGAD and other stakeholders to put into task the incumbent administration "to respect the law, human rights, freedom of assembly and speech.”
Secondly the Wadajir party is seeking advice from USA and Norwegians attorneys on how to institute legal actions against the top leaders of Somalia including president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo who has dual citizenship being Somali American while prime minister Hassan Ali Khaire is also a Somali Norwegian on accusations ranging from illegal detention, human rights abuses, using violence and illegal killings of 6 innocent security guards.
