Stop Farmaajo from destroying Somalia

Upon realizing that his term - which expires in February 2021 - will end, Somalia's president Farmajo has since last year silently engineered all manner of local and international crises in a bid to cling onto power.

He has taken the hubris, dysfunction and highly confrontational methods that have characterized his reign a notch higher, throwing all manner of tantrums and stoking diplomatic tiffs with stable neighboring countries that he feels pose a threat to his desperate bid to cling onto the presidency.

Within Somalia itself, Farmajo’s arrogance is a recipe for political and security turmoil. There are fears that his scheme to interfere with the parliamentary election process next month could push Somalia into power and constitutional vacuum that could lead to the destruction of the country’s public infrastructure.

He has unsuccessfully tried to influence regional elections in Jubaland and Puntland, injecting millions of shillings in aid money into unconventional campaigns.

The upcoming election was initially scheduled for December 1, 2020, but was postponed as a result of Farmajo’s meddling. The presidential election, which was to take place in early 2021, was pushed to August this year.

The president has been accused of stacking the poll committee - which coordinates parliamentary elections before the presidential poll - with his allies. He has, among others, also deployed intelligence boss Fahad Yasin as the head of his re-election campaign.

Fahad is the financier of several terror groups in Somalia, and he used to supply them with information, money and all their needs to sustain the fighting that claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people.

Clearly, Farmaajo's actions do not depict someone who understands the history of the costly civil war and the long difficult journey travelled by Somalis to get to where they are today. He must be stopped before he completely destroys Somalia.