Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, former president of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government. PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Africa Review
Monday, April 22, 2013
Members of the Somali diaspora living in the US city of Boston
on Sunday feted the former president of Somalia’s Transitional Federal
Government (TFG), Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who is currently a
resident at a leading local university.
Sheikh Ahmed is the latest beneficiary of the
former-Presidents-in-Residence fellowship initiated by Boston University
in Massachusetts, USA.
Sheikh Ahmed started his fellowship in January,
four months after losing the presidential contest in Somalia, on
September 10 last year.
The scholarship is administered by the African Presidential Archives and Research Centre (APARC) based at the university.
Though having a chequered past in Somalia’s
volatile politics, Sheikh Ahmed was widely praised for the peaceful
handover of power after he lost the election. It was the first such
transfer witnessed in Somalia in four decades.
A key criteria of winning the APARC scholarship is
that the beneficiary be an African leader who handed over power
peacefully to an elected successor. Sheikh Ahmed was succeeded in office
by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud.
Somali community members who visited him at the
university commended his efforts in leading Somalia through a very
difficult transitional period.
“Your participation in the presidential contest
and your acceptance of the results was a demonstration of democracy
coming back to Somalia,” said a community member.
APARC’s director and former US ambassador to
Tanzania, Mr Charles Stith, also spoke at the occasion and wished
Somalia well. “We urge Somalis to preserve the integrity of their
government and its dignity by supporting the administration,” he said.
Under the APARC programme, former heads of state
of African democracies are invited to live and work at Boston University
for up to two years, sharing their insights and expertise with the
university and broader communities on the economies and politics of
their countries.
APARC hosts programmes, including debates on public policy, to extend knowledge of the complexities and resources in Africa.
Previous beneficiaries of APARC’s
Former-Presidents-In-Residence fellowship are Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda,
Liberia’s Ruth Sando Perry, Botswana’s Ketumile Masire and Cape Verde’s
António Mascarenhas Monteiro.