By: Yusuf M Hasan
BADHAN (Somalilandsun) – A group from Garowe intent on holding a political rally in Badan have been sent packing back to their home base.
The Puntland team that arrived late on the evening of 24th June were forcefully evicted from the hotel they had booked for lodgings and rally venue by the Somaliland Army unit whose headquarter is in Badan town of Sanaag region.
Speaking on phone to our Sanaag stringer Mohamed Youssef Bakayle the Badan Army Commander Colonel Yasin Osman Salah ‘Gurei’ informed that the political agitators were forcefully removed from their hotel rooms in the early morning after an hour long stand-off.
“During the hour long stand-off the army was in total control after securing the entire perimeters of the hotel and adjacent buildings” Said Col Gurei
Informing that the stand-off was occasioned by elders who were pursuing a face saving exit for the Puntland political agents, Col Gurei revealed that the army wanted to arrest the intruders and transfer them to the regional headquarters in Erigavo town.
The army’s designs did not succeed as the elders managed to negotiate a hasty departure for the agitators who were bundled into privately owned vehicles that they paid for before embarking on their journey to the Puntland port city of Bosaso.
Colonel Yasin Osman Salah ‘Gurei ‘said that the army is in extra vigilance as a deterrence of similar incursions by politicians from Puntland who have professed their determination to involve residents of the sprawling Badan district of Sanaag region in elections slated later this year in the administrative region of Somalia that continues to lay claims to the area on basis of clan affiliation.
The commander who informed that the army and area elders are in concurrence that they, Elders, shall not in future intervene warned others to be infiltrators that dire consequences await them if and when they set foot in any part of Badan.
