Tyranny is among one of the bad skills in poor leadership. A leader has no vision when he has no practical mission that moves the country to a positive change. The current Somali leader is insensitive to the public concerns and as a result remains distrusted from the hearts and minds of the Somali people. A poor leadership style is often associated with appointing incompetent government officials as well as bad advisors. The current Somali leader has such a poor leadership skills that will lead him to failure and will attempt to rule the country with a totalitarian regime.

The Somali government made little or no progress in its first year of tenure. Political opponents blamed the president for running the government in an ineffective and inefficient way due to his incompetence and demanded him to step down for the best of the country. Instead he ignored the goodwill of the opposing civil politicians and made difficult roadblocks in the process of political reconciliation. Somalia needs a new leader that can better handle the government business appropriately.

He consolidated all three major branches of the government and delegated all government influences to a small elite group which is composed of his loyal inner circle team of his religious cult. The small elite group at the state house became the actual political bosses of the government and created an uneasy political situation that alienated civil political oppositions and private media corporations. The current weak government is not only inept and corrupt, but threatens violence against privately owned media and unarmed political oppositions.

The Somali president aims to frighten his political opponents and the media in order to change their views and to force them to become pro-government cadres or remain silent. He wants to enjoy unilateral supports from his religious cohort and his clan-minded constituencies. Make no mistake that the president has tyrannical plans of ruling the country with repression, intimidation, persecution, and undemocratic means of governance.

The Somali political oppositions simply asked the Somali leader to be proactive for a shared, genuine, and practical solutions of a political reconciliation until the Somali people will have a free and fair election for president. If that is not the case, civil oppositions will feel compelled to arm themselves, because they feel that they have no say in the political process of the country unless they are armed.

The Somali president ordered few of his loyal stooges to make a plot that forces Shabelle Media Network being out of business. He felt threatened in a great deal about the enormity of information regarding government malpractices that Shabelle Media Network exposes to the public and to foreign donors.

Shabelle Media Network is the biggest, neutral, and popular media that closely follows up and reports government incompetence and embezzlements of senior government officials. Particularly, it enables opposing politicians and citizens' voices to be heard.

Recently the media was journalistically investigating incapability of the interior minister due to security deterioration in Mogadishu and corruption allegations of Banadir governor regarding selling public owned lands secretly to companies owned by senior government officials in partnership with foreign corporations.

The information minister, acting as a puppet, under the pressure of the president, ordered the private media corporations to register their companies under the minister's supervision. Under his authority, the media will be under strict supervision and will be controlled over what they publish or report to the public. Such enactment violates freedom of speech, because the media will be forced to follow strict censorship. It will also violate the rightsof individual property ownership, because their rights as owners of the media companies will be limited and it will feel as if they are under the government ownership.

On October 26, 2013, The interior minister with hundreds of armed government militias from the state house accompanied by radical religious fighters, stormed the headquarters of Shabelle Media Network. At that time, there were mainly few female journalists working at the two radio stations in the building, who were mistreated inhumanly. The reporters were beaten and stolen their personal laptops and cell phones. The government militias looted and ransacked privately owned properties of Shabelle Media Network. The damage caused to the properties of the Shabelle Media Network were estimated to several hundred thousands of US Dollars.

It is ridiculous that the government is unable to bring government militias to the frontlines where they are greatly needed to combat the armed opposition groups. contrariwise, the government confronted innocent reporters emphatically and were actually proud of destroying properties owned by civilians.

Besides looting hard currency, equipment and personal properties, the government militias confiscated data files stored in different information technologies, particularly information related to allegations of corruptions against senior government officials. The raid also targeted personal information files of the customer's private documents. The government inappropriately obtained detailed private data of its dissidents who were interviewed in the past at the media headquarters and the Shabelle Media Network is highly concerned about what the government is going to do with the private data collected from its headquarters.

The government used unnecessary force against a peaceful media group and showed disregard to the rule of law. That negative modeling and harassment might compel civilians to seek revenge against the perpetrators in an armed manner. In addition to that, during the course of the government raiding at Shabelle Media Network headquarters, witnesses spotted known members of the armed religious groups with the government militias from the state house.

Such event makes it clear to a certain extend the existence of artistic collaborations between the government and armed religious group. That indicates that the senior government officials are not honest about fighting against the armed opposition group vigorously. This suggests that they are undermining the will of the people to fight against the religious radical group.

The Somali People's Party condemns the coercive regime of the Somali government that violated the rights of private property ownership of the media, freedom of press, freedom of speech and disregard to the rule of law. With a proper court proceedings and court order, privately owned business could be taken by the government rather than a government official to make such decision.

We encourage all media corporations to deliver informative and factual news to the public and to help the Somali people be well-informed citizens. The government's use of force to shut down the Shabelle Media Network will not stop brave journalistic investigations of uncovering government corruption, abuses, and misuses of its authority.

 

We are aware of the corrupt practices that the senior government officials are involved in. They are doing business with local private investors in collaboration with foreign companies and are guarantying government owned premises to conduct profitable businesses. They have tried to do this operation clandestinely, however Shabelle Media uncovered their secret operations. As a result, Shabelle Media Network was attacked by government militia, their property was destroyed, important confidential information was confiscated without proper reason, and eventually they were evicted out of their building. These are implacable actions with no legal bases and is delivering a message of sinister intention to the public. The building's urgent need by fictional entity of Somali Airlines is purely a pretext to make sound the plot against Shabelle Media Network.

Dr. Said Mohamud

Chair of the Somali People's Party

[email protected]

Maine, USA