Past Tweets haunt the new national security adviser for Somalia President

[Deeq A.]

There is little doubt that Hussein Sheikh-Ali misused his insider information during his brief tenure as national security adviser to churn out reports expressly designed to mislead the International Community.

In his earlier career before being reappointed the national security adviser Hussein Sheikh was a keyboard warrior demonstrating his questionable grasp of the Horn of Africa history. In one tweet he argued that the Ethiopian Prime Minister had adopted ethnically divisive policies. He likened Abiy’s policies to those of the Somalia military leader Mohamed Siad Barre (1969-1991) whom United Somali Congress toppled in 1991, and with the regime the state collapsed. USC leaders allowed its militias to loot public and private properties in Mogadishu.

Abiy Ahmed did not come to power through a coup; a peaceful transfer of power ensured his ascendancy. Hussein, a TPLF sympathiser, failed to understand the complex political history of Ethiopia, a country whose forces are in Somalia as peacekeepers following a bilateral agreement signed by the Federal Government of Somalia and the Ethiopian Government in 2013.

Hussein’s Twitter outbursts resulted from TPLF battlefield successes before Turkish-supplied drones changed the course of the Ethiopian civil war nearly one year ago. The TPLF expected to form an alliance with Oromo Liberation Front, but this plan had come to nought.

In one flippant, unsolicited advice, Hussein addressed Abiy Ahmed thus: “ Oh, don’t forget to take your little one in Mogadishu with you.” “The little one” in question is the former Somalia President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who appointed Hussein the national security adviser in 2017. Hussein claims to have written the Somalia Counterterrorism Strategy.

At Hiraal Institute, a “disinformation think tank” in the words of a Mogadishu-based journalist, Hussein has overseen the publication of biased reports aimed to divert attention from parts of Somalia where Al-shabaab levies taxes (zakat, in Al-shabaab lingo) on businesses.

His tweets put a question mark on the judgement of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. There is little doubt that he misuses his insider information during his brief tenure as national security adviser to churn out reports expressly designed to mislead the International Community. Hussein may as well mislead President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud given the fact that national security adviser’s shocking lack of professionalism predisposes him (Hussein) to tweet unprofessionally and oversee the publication of disinformation-filled reports under Hiraal Institute logo.

By O. D. Hassan

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