By M.A.Egge
HARGEISA (Somalilandsun) – The President H.E. Ahmed Mohamed Mahmud Silanyo led thousands of mourners in attending the state burial held for the late Ahmed Mohammed Aden a.k.a. (Qaybe) whose body was laid to rest on Wednesday the 27th of November 2014 in the city.
At the graveyard the Head of State described the late Qaybe as a soft-spoken, articulate and God-fearing person during his lifetime.
He recalled his impeccable public long service period in which he left an indelible mark engraved well in the country’s history. Several cabinet members and Guurti Speaker Hon Suleiman Adan showered the diceased with similar sentiments in their eulogies.
The arguably only Somali speaking professional in legislature and legislative procedures has left a gigantic mark not only in his home country of Somaliland but the whole of the former Somalia in technocracy circles. The pioneer and long serving parliamentary speaker and long time ambassador and ministerial chief was born in 1930 at the British colonial military base known as the Royal Naval Station at Khoor-Masar in Aden, Yemen.
After leaving high school in Aden, the late Qaybe worked for the first ever Somali radio in Hargeisa, Radio Kudu, before briefly going back to Yemen in the late 1940s.
In early 50s however he came back to Somaliland, Hargeisa, where he worked at the local colonial district commissioner’s office.
In 1956 he became the town clerk Berbera town before going to London for tertiary education through a scholarship.
Upon arrival from London he became the Parliamentary Executive Secretary for Somaliland and at the same time the Secretary for the Airlifts and Foreign Education Committee meant to harness local skills by under-studying the colonial masters.
In January 1960, the late Qaybe once again went back to the UK for further advanced studies before coming back to start a long diplomatic career in a country newly unified with the southern Italian Somali to become Somalia.
Form the end of 1960 to 1985 the late Ambassador Qaybe served as the high commissioner for the USSR, US, UK and the UN.
He became the permanent secretary of the former Somalia ministry of foreign affairs for the subsequent five years, before capping it up by serving as the foreign minister however for a short stint of 6 months.
After Somaliland re-asserted its independence the government once more sought the services of the late Qaybe and served as the parliamentary speaker from 1997 to 2005 (eight years).
He played pivotal and major roles in the establishment of the country’s statutory books being one of the three personalities whose signatures are borne and engraved in.
Indeed the late Qaybe’s larger than life autobiography has its past enshrined putting him among the uppermost personalities with everlasting and deserving eminence in SL’s history.
