Somalia’s public works minister resigns over President Farmajo’s policies toward southwestern region

By The Star Staff Writer

MOGADISHU – Somalia’s minister for public works has resigned on Sunday in protest of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo’s policies toward the southwestern region, where the arrest of former Islamist leader Mukhtar Robow sparked off three days of deadly protests that killed at least 12 people.

Abdifatah Mohamed Ibrahim Gesey’s decision to quit is likely to add to the increasing local and international pressure on President Farmajo to release Robow and allow him to take part in the Dec. 19 election.

“I’ve resigned from my position because I am angry at President Farmajo’s policies toward my region. He wants to install his ally as my region’s leader,” Gesey told The Somalia Star in a telephone interview after announcing his resignation in a press conference in the nation’s capital, Mogadishu. “I won’t accept to be a part of that injustice.”

Gesey told The Star that he had met with President Farmajo several times to try to persuade him to change his administration’s policies toward the southwestern region, but the president refused to budge.

During Sunday’s press conference, Gesey accused the Farmajo administration of kidnapping Robow and committing abuses against residents of Baidoa, the main city in the southwestern region.

Deadly protests erupted after Ethiopian forces arrested Robow on Thursday. At least 12 people, including a 10-year-old boy and a woman, died during the clashes that pitted Robow’s supporters against Ethiopian and Somali security forces.

Robow’s arrest was seen by many as an apparent bid by the national government to scuttle the former Islamist’s candidacy for the position of southwest’s chief administrator.

The government accused Robow, who defected from the militant group of al Shabab in 2017, of bringing weapons and fighters into Baidoa and of mobilizing an army with the objective of creating disorder in the country, particularly in Baidoa.

Before his arrest, Robow was a favorite to become the southwestern region’s chief administrator, a powerful office whose holder can be a headache for the national government if he decides not to play along with its policies.

Robow’s arrest has also angered politicians from his region, with parliamentary Speaker Mohamed Mursal Sheikh Abdirahman on Saturday calling for the man’s “immediate” release, while terming the government’s action “illegal”.

Geesey, who was appointed as the national government’s public works minister on May 24 this year, told reporters that he was not aware of any government’s decision to disqualify Robow.

He faulted the national government for not consulting his region’s lawmakers and ministers on the policies that affect their constituencies.

He condemned the role of the African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, in Robow’s arrest.

“I condemn the AMISOM forces in Baidoa. Amisom’s job was to keep the peace. It’s clear — and we condemn it – AMISOM has melted into Somali politics, especially into the southwestern (region),” he said, accusing the AU’s Ethiopian contingent in Baidoa of oppressing residents who were protesting to express their views.