For three decades now, since the fall of Siyad Barre in 1991, Somalia continues to experience formidable challenges.
National disintegration has become more fashionable by the day as a means of economic, social coping by different regions and communities.
In response to insecurity in Somalia, the AU created the African Union Mission and deployed the peacekeeping force in the country in 2007.
With a lot of hope, President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo was elected in 2017.
Somalia is going through difficult, challenging times but the future is hopeful. As Basil Davidson observed in his book The Black Man’s Burden, Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State, state failure is not unique to Somalia.
The distance between Africa’s 21st-Century dreams and realities is not unsurmountable.
What, however, concerns the majority of observers is the callous, negative opinions and commentaries of people who otherwise bear respectable titles.
Some of these know-it-alls compare Mogadishu to Kabul, arguing that Somalia is a legal fiction, not a state, with only one solution to its three-decades-old problems.
That is splitting the country into statelets. No doubt, there are many reasons why this opinion is wrong.
First, trying to compare the national, historical political challenges facing Afghanistan and Somalia is unhelpfully wrong. It’s a false equivalence.
The history of Afghanistan is complex. It’s a landlocked country that has no coast to attract people and trade. Somalia is a single ethnic nation with Africa’s largest coastal belt, over 3,000km long.
It has a crucial global strategic location. Other than the majority of their populations being of Islamic faith, there is little else to compare between Somalia and Afghanistan.
Second, the remark that “Somalia is a legal fiction, not a state” is a straw man.
The proponents do not support this argument with any facts.
Third, balkanisation is national suicide. This is no doubt the underside of ivory tower elitism. General Yakubu Gowon of “Go on with one Nigeria fame” said no to splitting Nigeria in the 1970s.
In 1963, Jomo Kenyatta said no to the “wily British attempt to dismember Kenya”, to quote journalist John Kamau. Abraham Lincoln said no to it in the USA in the 1860s. Nelson Mandela said no in South Africa in 1994.
The argument that Somalia cannot become one prosperous, democratic nation is a mega misconception.
Many writers are wrong about Somalia because their arguments suffer from negative instincts; the tendency to notice the bad about Somalia more than the good. Additionally, their arguments lack facts.
As the Indians say, “When an elephant is in trouble, even the frogs and hares will kick him.” The nation of Somalia may be simply an elephant or a giraffe in trouble.
It’s true, the prevailing political situation in Somalia is depressing but not hopeless. The economic potential of this Horn of Africa nation is extraordinarily huge, more than $400 billion.
Prof Ali Mazrui said the problems of African countries are caused by “the paradox of maladministration, retardation and technical backwardness, leading to severe poverty, ignorance, diseases, civil wars and high environmental degradation".
It’s up to the people of Somalia to discover their own formula for success. The three key pillars of a prosperous nation are a working economy (markets), the state and communities.
Clannism is the refuge for the poor and the insecure. The people of Somalia need to find their own philosopher kings who will lead them in the process of national recovery and rebuilding.
This optimism rests on definite, solid grounds: Discipline, hard work and culture. We are Africans and pan-Africanism is our business.
Strategic consultant
(Edited by V. Graham)
