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Somalia and rogue husband

card
Friday, October 15, 2021

President Uhuru Kenyatta with Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, during his inauguration ceremony in PSCU
Mogadishu, Somalia.

By Mutuma Mathiu
Editorial Director
Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

I can think of at least one good deed that our neighbours have
done for us.
I don’t know of one good thing that Somalia has ever done for
us.

This column will get me in no end of trouble, but I’ll write it anyway
because there is a big debate going on and we, our children and our
children’s children, will live with the consequences.

To be quite honest, I’d not wish the Federal Republic of Somalia as a

neighbour on my worst enemy. There is never a quiet moment in
that country; life is an endless, angry squabble. And there is no end
of violent problems and they all end up washing up on neighbours’
doors. I can think of at least one good deed that our neighbours
have done for us.
Tanzania, through its Presidents Jakaya Kikwete and Ben Mkapa,
helped us to crack the post-election conundrum in 2008 and save
our country. Ethiopia, through our defence pact, protected us when
we couldn’t quite defend ourselves during the Cold War. President
Yoweri Museveni of Uganda makes nice speeches during big days. I
don’t know of one good thing that Somalia has ever done for us.

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I can think of a thousand bad things that have happened to us since

the fall of Mohamed Siad Barre 30 years, including the slaughter of
150 university students in Garissa whose killers, to the best of my
knowledge, have not all been brought to justice, but I’ll not go into
that.
What offends me a little is that, in Somalia, Kenya is a cliché, a
bogeyman, a caricature. When Somali leaders want to unite their
nation, they just recite what evil, bad people Kenyans are and the
people unite behind them against the despicable neighbour.

Pandora’s box
And now, the decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
giving Somalia some of the territory it had claimed from Kenya, and
Nairobi’s decision not to honour that judgment, gives Somali
demagogues a grievance around which to mobilise the people
against us for politics.

The ICJ ruling is a whole new Pandora’s box, full of horrors for our
future. My instinct is to always obey the court; you can question the
fairness of the process, you can question the judgment, but
compliance is never available for discussion. We never allow people
to defend themselves on our pages in court matters; we always send
them to present their case in court. This is different, however,
because it is a court without appeal or recourse and one which,
according to the Government of Kenya, had procedural unfairness
from which it got no relief.
Justice Abdulqawi Yusuf, a Somali citizen, sits on the ICJ bench
(he’s actually the court’s equivalent of a DCJ, according to some
reporting) and had sometimes back represented Somalia at a UN
conference, where he expressed de!nite views about how sea
boundaries should be drawn. The question is whether, in a case like
this and where a judge is a citizen of litigating state and had
previously expressed allegiance to a doctrine, litigants will feel that
they have been treated fairly.
Another sticking point for Kenya is the question of compulsory
jurisdiction. Countries can choose whether the court can hear their
cases or whether they choose alternative methods of resolving the
dispute, such as through mediation and other bilateral
mechanisms. I suspect that Kenya mishandled this part of business,
but that is water under the bridge.

Unspeakable husband
Kenya alleges that Somalia worked with powerful commercial
parties, possibly European, in concocting this case, with the
intention exploiting minerals, possibly oil or natural gas, from the
territory that Somalia is claiming from Kenya. There are always
mercenaries and very unsavoury characters involved in African
resource con"icts. Powerful nations overthrow African
governments and impose puppets to gain access to natural
resources.

Ordinary husbands are terri!ed of their wives. So when they are

suspected of wrongdoing, instinctively they don’t own up, they deny
and deny. But there is a category of horrible men who are not
scared of their wives, have no respect for them at all and proceed
on the basis that they will behave as they wish and their wives can
do what they want.
So if the wife confronts this class of husband and says, “You were
seen with that terrible Sarah at the club last Saturday, when you
claimed to have gone to buy cows in Mandera. What were you
doing with her?” this unspeakable husband will answer: “We drunk
and partied until 4am, then we went to her house and I stayed there
for three days.”
This is the nuclear option, a devastating and unfair move which
allows the other party no comeback.
So Somalia, playing for maximum advantage, rejected the
mediation mechanisms available at the African Union and went to
court and won the judgment it wanted. Kenya has protested and
rejected the judgment as unfair and full of illegalities. It has also
signalled that it will not hand over any territory to Somalia, the
court ruling notwithstanding.
Kenya has played the rogue husband card. Now the ball is in
Somalia’s court.
mmutuma@ke.nationmedia.com

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3 Comments Login with your Nation account

Sort by Newest

Jackie Kaaya • 4 hours ago

We need to have Jubaland recognized and open an embassy there. The last
time I checked those men running Jubaland were our friends.
Share ›

N G • 6 hours ago
I wish Mutuma Mathiu wrote on a daily basis. I cannot get enough of his
articles. Consistent quality all through the years.
Share ›

James karimi Karimi • 9 hours ago

Kenya should now recognize Somaliland and Puntland and open embassies
there, hasten the creation of Jubaland as a functional state and open back
channels to alshabab for leverage much like the pakistan ISI.
Share ›

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