By: Yusuf M Hasan
MOGADISHU (Somalilandsun) – The Somalia federal governments –SFG national police operations remain in abeyance as the fired police chief commander General Abdihakim Dahir Saeed refuses to hand over to his replacement.
“Only the president of the SFG can remove me from the office of Somalia national police commander” said Gen Abdihakim in Mogadishu thus an official disregard of the sacking effected by Prime minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed.
The PM fired Gen Abdihakim Dahir last week and replaced him with Gen Mohamed Sh Hasan Ismail following an Al-Shabaab attack at the Villa Somalia building that houses the president’s office and residence in Mogadishu, the second in five month
True to his words Gen Abdihakim who appears to have support from a large segment of politicians and citizens continues to run police operations, with officers happy to fulfil his commands and related orders while his replacement keeps watch at the gates of police headquarters in Mogadishu.
Although the fired General purports that his refusal to hand-over office until such an order comes from the office of the SFG president Hasan Sheikh our sources within police headquarters indicate other underlying motives on the prime minister.
According to the sources Gen Abdihakim and his coterie of supporters within the police force and political spectrum accuse PM Abdiweli of Nepotism perpetrated through the systematic elimination of senior officers from Government whom he, PM, replaces with his clansmen.
The newly appointed and supposedly incoming SFG police chief Gen Mohamed Sh Hasan Ismail is from the same sub-sub clan with PM Abdiweli Sheikh.
Other reasons attributed to the refusal by Gen Abdihakim to vacate office are related to an international arrest warrant for his replacement issued by the Canadian government which wants to prosecute the PM Abdiweli appointed SDFG police chief for crimes against humanity.
While the Canadian government is yet to divulge details of the crimes committed by the Gen Mohamed Sh Hasan Ismail sources indicate that they relate to massacres committed against Somalilanders during the reign of Siad Barre another clansman whom the Gen served with diligence in the late seventies and earlier eighties.
News of the Gen Mohamed international arrest warrant and charges of crimes against humanity thence his inclusion in a list of thirty wanted persons were divulged during a joint briefing conducted by Minister Toews, Jason Kenney, minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism, and Luc Portelance, president of the border agency, at the headquarters of the Canadian Border Services Agency –CBSA near Pearson International Airport in Toronto.
“The New Somali Police Force Commissioner is a Somalian war criminal wanted by government of Canada and Toronto-area police (…) he is wanted by the government of Canada for violating human rights under the Crimes against Humanity and the War Crimes Act.” Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said
According to the CBSA Mohamed Sheikh Hasan Ismail is an iindividual determined to be inadmissible to Canada and is the subject of an active Canada-wide arrest warrant, issued pursuant to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).
While cracks have existed in official relations between premier Abdiweli and president Hasan the refusal of Gen Abdihakim to hand over police command, alleged nepotistic actions and the Canadian arrest warrant impinge negatively on Prime minister Abdiweli Sheikh.
With the covert backing given to Gen Abdihakim by not only politicians and citizens but by senior police officers and the silence on the saga, read covert support, of president Hasan clearly spells doom for the prime minister who assumed office last year.
On the other hand the visible breakdown of government structures is a plus for Al-Shabaab which is fighting the SFG for control of the war torn country and a minus for AMISOM troops who are sponsored by the international community to not only fight the militants but buttress the weak SFG administration and its corruption tainted president as well.
