The Somali Diaspora in North America have had a long awaited thrill and deepening phenomenon about how President Sharif goes through the transition period and midwife the hope and aspirations filled with the minds of Somalis across the globe. But upon visited us in Washington D.C. and in Minnesota, he failed to sell himself, and as a result, sat the pregnant mother (the country) to the theater for abortion. Some hold that the problem was not due to unintentional miscarriage; rather, it was due to poor marketing strategy. And for this, the president should punish his CMO and Speechwriter (if he got one), or he can fire them with the intention of no reinstatement to any civil service position in the near future. Let me explain this in logical hypothesis.

It was well obvious that the country had experienced a chronic clan-phobia and ill-conceived political practices. And in the middle of nowhere, the country got pregnant, leaving us with good hope of safe delivery. But it is the president himself who seemed to be the only available midwife. And since we never knew about the president career, we expected him to be a professional at delivering the baby safely. We also assumed that there would be at least professional nurses to assist him in the delivery. This is where the Chief Marketing Officer comes in to formulate the delivery strategic plan. Besides, in their help, our perceptual guess was that two-thirds of the president’s term be allotted to marketing and brand positioning. This means that unlike the 90 days that new U.S. Presidents have, 487 days of the 730 available days to this administration should be given to the Chief Marketing Officer to convince the world, including us, that this is the right man at the right time, and in the right place. Then, the probability would yield that the remaining 243 days would, nonetheless, grant them more time to fix the constitutional crisis from within the National Assembly.

But what we encountered in the president’s first journey which was held in the Washington D.C. and in Minnesota was a birth failure, yet frightening, and sent a disappointing signal, questioning the ability of the presidents and even his sincerity. Therefore, the whole mission amounted to nothing. And this is why those who was responsible for this stoppage ought to be fired because the whole picture and the atmospheric mood of the incident were jeopardized by them. Period. I say so for four related reasons. One, the events in both places were poorer and ill-prepared. In fact, events directors and coordinators behaved badly before and during the events by taking advantage of their political and social ends, if not monetary ones. Particularly, the one held Virginia was the worst, after all. The guy who was responsible this particular event, Jamal was reported to have managed cleverly and portrayed his tinny world on the last end of this marketing mission.

Second, the demographic issues were ignored. Somalis in Virginia are told to be the most intellectual and educated Diaspora, most of them never met the president before. True anyone who was present out there could tell how keen and interested they looked like in that evening to reading the minds of the delegates. And because of this, they demanded savvy marketers more attention than any other place. The result? They got bored and frustrated. In fact one man came out and mocked at the president in the middle of his speech. “You are required to make the capital peaceful”, he said. Moreover, these poor coordinators collected bulk of questions. But impressed and reluctant later, they skipped the question altogether. For all intents and purposes, however, this showed the uncooperativeness of the delegates. And what went wrong must be put on the shoulders of the marketing department because nobody could divert their strategic plan, if they were serious about their mission.

Third, when the turn of the president came to speak, he looked hopeless, inconsolable, and tired; failing to tell us something we did not know of. In fact, almost everything he mentioned was what he did in the past. And the repetition of words notwithstanding, he seemed unhappy with even being at the concert. Those of you who were present there can remember the president putting his hands across each other pondering ways to flip his emotions. His felt emotions forced him to tell us what he told six month ago. The country had heard him loud and clear. This horrific condition seals out the demotion of his speechwriter.

Fourth, when it came to the turn of Ahmed Ilmi Du’ale, the Somali Ambassador to the UN, the guy who introduced him to the crowd ruined the career of the ambassador and that of the president. Although he spoke Somali, the translation of his words is the following: “This time, I am going to welcome my uncle”, said the guy, “I don’t know if you know him, but he is my uncle.” From that point onwards, it became public that the mission was about a clan picnic. Worse still, the ambassador did not distance the guy. Instead, he just started taking about his political nonsense.

Any healthy logic would, therefore, tell us that at international level the country is ill-portrayed and misunderstood. This begs instant questions. How about the interpreter? Did he interpret both signs and words well since every meeting in Washington was a three-way conversation? I doubt it. History tells that there always is an overlap in three-way interpretations, and they are not exempted from human error. We were ashamed. But nothing explains this better than an incident happened in that evening. There was another official who was visiting Washington for different mission on different trip. Driven by his joyful patriotism, he decided to attend the event from wholly dissimilar route. And instead of coming to and uniting with his fellow delegates he disappeared in the crowd. The first interpretation of this is that knowing well how things would go with other officials, he decided to hide himself in the mob. But they dragged him into the scene when they saw him.

Now, with all that, I submit that the president is the man in charge of us. This is why they taught us that there is high, higher, and highest. He is the highest man in authority, and to deny him this title is to be foolish and pedestrian. His route to becoming the highest man in the country is irrelevant. What matters is how he seeks the power-sharing game plan and negotiations to have the country back good functionality.

Abdiqani Farah

abdiqanif@hotmail.com

Disclaimer: Opinion expressed here are those of the auther.