Sunday, November 17, 2013
Tension remains high in war-torn Somalia after President Hassan Sheikh
Mohamud asked Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon to resign last week.
The development is a major blow to Somalia, which has
experienced a rare period of political stability for the past year,
since the new negotiated government was set up with the backing of the
United Nations and the international community.Sources
within the Somalia government say the President asked the Premier to
resign on grounds that Shirdon was ineffective in his job. But the
adamant Prime Minister has declined to leave office and has instead
called for Parliament’s intervention, terming his attempted ouster
unconstitutional.
Addressing Parliament three days
ago, Shirdon told MPs that he had a “constitutional dispute” with
President Mohamud, but did not elaborate. Sources within government
have, however, disclosed to The Standard On Sunday that the rift between
the President and Premier was political power struggle.
According
to the sources, the leaders agreed on the need for a Cabinet reshuffle
to improve effectiveness of government, but the President disapproved of
the list crafted by the Premier insisting he redrafts the same to
include specific individuals. “It is at this point that the PM
indicated the move was unconstitutional and asked the President not to
interfere with his work. What followed was a demand by the President
that the PM should resign,” explained our source, who is a senior
staffer in the PM’s office.
Abused hospitality
Sources
close to the two leaders confirmed to The Standard On Sunday that the
situation remains unresolved as of this weekend – a development that is
of grave concern to Somalia’s neighbours in the Horn of Africa region,
especially Kenya.
The move comes at a time when Kenya is
in the process of sending Somali nationals living in refugee camps in
northern Kenya back home. The government considers the refugee camps as
havens for Somali extremists and has called for hundreds of thousands of
refugees to return home.
“Some of these refugees have
abused our hospitality and kindness to plan and launch terror attacks
from the safety of the refugee camps. This cannot and should not be
allowed to continue,” Interior minister, Joseph ole Lenku, said
recently.
He was reacting to reports that one of the
suspects of Nairobi’s Westgate mall attack lived in one of the refugee
camps, where he reportedly strategized for the deadly blast.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees records, Kenya hosts an estimated 640,000 refugees.
But there are many more unregistered refugees who cross the porous border to the country.