Somaliland:University of Hargeisa Goes DotSo of the Somalia Federal Government!

[Deeq A.]

The Republic of Somaliland’s state-owned, state-run University of Hargeisa (UOH) goes under the official Somalia Federal Government domain DotSo (.so).

Permission for use of FGS domain was granted UOH by the Somalia National Information Commission – SONIC – and the contact address is retained by it, with the technical email remaining under the official admin@sonic.gov.so (the gov standing for the Somalia Federal government).

The University of Hargeisa has in the past used domains ending with DotCom or DotNet, maintaining its independence and identity as a Somaliland university.

Inexplicably, the UOH chooses to share the official Somalia domain .So with the University of Somalia (www.uniso.edu.so), Mogadishu University (www.mu.edu.so), SIMAD (www.simad.edu.so), Kismayu University (www.ku.edu.so), and all the rest of Somalia-owned universities.

Unlike the UOH, Puntland universities, which rightly fall under the Somalia Federal Government, choose to remain with their .Com and .net domains: PSU (Garowe): www.puntlandstateuniversity.com, East Africa University (Bossasso): www.easafricauniverrsity.net.

The University has been on the up-and-up since 2003 stepping on to an upward-inching path to excellence which led to the new leadership taking the reins following a sputtering period the university suffered.

Under the new administration that has taken over the university helm some three years ago, the university has made a number of changes most of which, hitherto, going the right direction. It, to cite but one example, joined African and international university associations to lend credence to its accreditations. It also stepped up its postgrad programs and gave a complementing facelift to its main campus.

Of late, a great deal of shady, little-known developments had been surfacing that none of which has been submitted to or approved by a hodge-podge university council that, itself, hardly comes together. An investigation into how many other deals has the UOH going with Mogadishu is, certainly, in order.

The current UOH leadership, in this latest development, crosses the education border over to an area that squarely lays them bare to criminal litigation and a possible indictment on high treason.

The Republic of Somaliland restored its 1960 independence in May 1991, following a thirty-year domination and untold of suffering in the union it joined with Somalia on 1 July 1960. Somaliland towns and cities were totally demolished, hundreds of thousands fled over to Ethiopian refuge centers and equal numbers died, were maimed or suffered irreparable traumas under the brutal Somalia-dominated, military regime of General Siyad Barre.