Last week I contributed an op-ed piece to the Nairobi-based newspaper Daily Nation. One of the Somali intellectuals I discussed in my piece is Mr Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, a PhD student at the University of Oxford. I argued that Ingiriis, in a review of Consider Somaliland: State-Building with Traditional Elders and Institutions by Dr Marleen Renders, alleged the late Somaliland President Mohamed Hagi Ibrahim Egal, had bribed his opponents. In his rebuttal published in the Daily Nation (Writer set own agenda on Somali history ) Ingiriis wrote: “ It was the author of the book that I reviewed who made the contention, offering a myriad of primary sources to augment the argument.” I beg to differ. He did not use quotation marks to quote Dr Renders directly nor did he paraphrase her words in relation to Egal’s peace-making efforts during 1990s in Somaliland. It is Mr Ingiriis, I believe, who made the allegation that Egal bribed his opponents.
The following is what Ingiriis wrote in the review:
“Renders does not stick to her initial theoretical framework to critically evaluate the fact that elders act outside state institutions and are easily manipulated by handouts, as seen in their confrontation with the late former Somaliland president Mohamed Haji Ibahim Egal who bought peace by bribing his truculent opponents.” ( page 366, The Journal of Modern African Studies / Volume 51 / Issue 02 / June 2013).
Who is making the bribery allegation? Mr Ingiriis or Dr Renders? When reading Ingiriis’s quote from the review essay, please bear in mind that speech marks ( quotation marks) are mine, not his.
Liban Ahmad
M H Ingiriis’s rebuttal ( Daily Nation):
Writer set own agenda on Somali history
My op-ed piece ( Daily Nation):
Biased Somali scholars eclipse warlords
