The occasion was his. The venue was his. The organizers came under his command. The guests were his. The choice was his. But he did not see it.
The occasion was to crown Abdirizak Garaad Soofe Garaad Durran a sultan in Buuhoodle today, January 15, 2015. Present at the occasion was his elder brother Osman Garaad Soofe, a Vice Minister at the Somaliland Ministry of Interior, specifically responsible for regional governance. Present, also, at the occasion to honor the to-be-crowned Sultan were the Deputy House Speaker of the Somaliland Parliament, Basha Mohamed Farah, the Somaliland Minister for Health, the charismatic Suleiman Haglatosie, the Vice Minister for Information and Culture, Abdiwahid Abdirahman, and a number of other notable members of the Somaliland bicameral parliament and the cabinet of ministers. Over hundred cars carrying the most reputable among the traditional leaders of Burao, Erigavo and Hargeisa left on a cavalcade for Buuhoode to pay their respects. Other prominent figures representing international business corporates such as a heavy-weight delegation that Abdirashid Farah Ahmed, deputy Manager of Dahabshiil Operations Center led to grace the occasion.
And, yet, the new Sultan did not return the honor accorded him by either his brother or the nearly thousand-strong politicians, traditional leaders and business people from the Republic of Somaliland accorded him. He, in fact, flouted it in the worst possible manner he and the organizers of his coronation muster by draping the Somalia flag on the speakers’ podium of a live-transmitted ceremony!
Speakers, at the head of which, were those claiming ‘ministerial’ positions of the outlawed Khatumo turned the occasion to a propaganda platform for their ‘cause’.
One cannot remind anyone that the occasion was a traditional coronation that could have been confined within its culturally permitted parameters. There was no call for show of political allegiances. There was no place for either the Somalia flag
