Puntland MP Urges Somalia President to Make His Doctoral Dissertation Available

[Deeq A.]

President Dr Hassan Sheikh Mohamud receiving his doctorate at the University of Peace in 2022.

Garowe (PP News Desk) — Qalib Barud, an MP in the Puntland Parliament, has called on the President of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, to make his doctoral dissertation publicly available. President Mohamud authored a dissertation entitled Examining the Challenges of Clan Politics in State-building: A Case Study of Somalia, which he submitted in partial fulfilment of a doctoral degree at the University of Peace.

“[The] Ph.D. dissertation was titled Examining the Challenges of Clan Politics in State-building: A Case Study of Somalia. The Somali president is the only African leader with a doctorate on ‘clanism’. When will his dissertation be made public?” tweeted Barud.

Unlike his predecessor, President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, whose master’s degree was criticised for its apparent biases, particularly its focus on blaming specific clans for gaining political influence through collaboration with European colonisers before the 1969 coup, President Mohamud opted for an embargo on his dissertation. During this unspecified embargo period, researchers are unable to access the dissertation for reference purposes.

President Mohamud wrote the dissertation after leaving office in 2017. His framing of the political challenges of Somalia as being rooted in clan conflicts, rather than political elites, has raised questions about the integrity of the research underpinning his dissertation. Concerns have been voiced that he may have used classified government documents from his first tenure as president (2012–2017) to support his arguments.

Some Somali academics have criticised the emphasis on clans in the title of the dissertation, suggesting it raises ethical issues. “President Mohamud downplays the responsibility of political leaders for persecution, mass displacement, and dispossession by portraying Somalia’s political problems as a tussle between clans rather than a power struggle among political elites who mobilise their armed clans. His dissertation potentially whitewashes the suffering of clans with no clan militias such as the Banadiri clan at the hands of powerful and armed clan militias,” said a social scientist from a university in Mogadishu.

The Ethiopian government has reportedly expressed interest in accessing the dissertation to better understand President Mohamud’s perspective on the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Somalia and to assess whether his views show bias towards his own clan.

“By enabling the President of Somalia to submit a controversial thesis, the University of Peace denies Somalis the right to hold their politicians accountable. While writing up the dissertation on clan politics, President Mohamud was obliged to mention clan names,” Puntland Post editorialised in 2022.

© Puntland Post, 2024

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