Mogadishu City Report Card: The good, the ugly and the bad

By Heikal Kenneded

A few days ago I paid an impromptu visit to Mogadishu and I was determined to get a good-feel about the old city and how it was faring lately after three years of relative peace. I was not the least disappointed for the first time in decades – much rather rejoiced. My initial skepticism of the city’s recent evolution was immediately affronted by the immense transformation achieved over the past few years. I was captivated by the aura of the entire city that was priming with new vitality and renaissance like recovery of its old charm, unlike my last visit in 2011, when I felt visiting a city hit with strong earthquake. Mogadishu no longer looks like a downtrodden city from the Middle Ages, but rather a vibrant city with so much potential and captivating charm that takes hold of you and never wants to let you go. Despite all this, the city has still miles to claim of its old nickname as Pearl of the Indian Ocean; nevertheless, the road to a remarkable recovery is well underway and there’s no turning back. Thus, there’s every reason to believe that Mogadishu’s worst days are behind her and the future is as clear as its blue sky.

I was enthralled not only by the intense rebuilding of war-ravished buildings along city’s major streets, but by the spirit of hopefulness amongst the city’s populace, as if by resolve alone they could restore their city’s place in history. The biggest change is showcased by Turkey’s unprecedented soft-power, which has given the city a new lease in life and all Somalis around the world feel in awe and indebted forever to their brothers-in-faith who came to their rescue in the city’s darkest hour. Thanks to the Turkey’s faith on the city’s strategic potential, Mogadishu’s decrepit infrastructure has tremendously improved and most of the city’s historic landmarks have been shaped to their original shape and design.  For instance, the city’s new modern terminal at Aden Ade International airport with gleaming spacious departure and arrival halls captures your eyes as soon as one descends onto the incandescent tarmac of the city’s airport.  Another modern face of the city’s future is the Turkish renovated hospital Digfer (renamed after Turkish President, Erdogan) in Mogadishu, which boasts 200-bed with Training and Research Hospital. Not to mention the ever-bright solar-powered streetlights that has tremendously improved the city’s overall safety, not to mention increasing businesses to attract more customers.

Another commendable achievement belongs to the city’s relentless mayor and governor of the Banadir region, General Mungab who seems to possess the qualities of another American General, Patton who was nicknamed “Old Blood and Guts.” The mayor is credited to have single-handedly transformed the city’s general outlook for the better, unlike his predecessor who spoke the loudest, but accomplished little to show for it. General Mungab who only came to office in a little more than a year ago by presidential decree,  since taking office, he has accomplished various reforms intended to consolidating the city’s district administrations and spearheaded district developmental projects. For instance, the mayor carried out important renovation projects at government centers throughout the city and created a task force to carryout municipal beautification campaigns intended to improve the city's general outlook and bring back its old attractions alive. In fact, I have witnessed with my own eyes how incessantly the city’s streets and other important landmarks are cleaned every day.

Apparently, the word is out, Mogadishu is open for business and a plethora of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and institutions in such areas as education, health, sports and peace-building had been allowed to spring up, often encroaching on government ministries. In addition, the true creativity and resilience of Somalia's business community is once again thriving and sky is the limit for their potential to turn the country around into the Horn’s business hub.  For example, I was able to witness how enthusiastically the business community in the Bakaara market joined forces to rebuild the main streets of the market with their own money and resources. These sorts of initiatives will eventually translate into job creation and prevention of Somali youths from being idle and taking to the seas, or much worse joining into terrorism.

However, the one thing that almost nobody in Mogadishu discusses is politics in the country and the city’s residents mostly contend to tend on their own lives, unlike Somalis in the Diaspora who seem to feed on and quite often relish on such double-dealing world of Somali politics. In other words, it seems as though the city’s residents became innocuous to the false promises of various forms of governments who promised heaven and earth to change the way government business is run, nevertheless failed miserably and only to disappoint everyone. Most people show political-fatigue over successive governments’ constant squabble over whom to appoint important posts that eventually results in political paralysis, not to mention the constant reports of widespread corruption of government officials. Moreover, the government terribly failed to foil most of the security threats posed by the remnants of Al-Shabab and other vicious contract killings that incessantly haunt the city’s residents.

Further, despite all the achievements of the city’s emergence from the last quarter century’s failed state, targeted killing of politicians and other relevant professionals, such engineers and educators carried out by callous death squads is still rampant, not to mention the constant suicide bombers who continuously rock the city to its core. This has the consequential effect of most people remaining indoors after dusk, except those fateful brazen ones who without a care crisscross the city’s debilitating many checkpoints manned by fearful looking soldiers wearing face masks

Another challenge for the city’s residences is relearning tolerance for difference because the city seems to lack its greatest asset as an old metropolitan – cultural diversity.  Since at the dawn of the civil war, cultural diversity has been driven out of town and it was replaced by a different kind of diversity where the same clans are fighting for space and for economic and political control of the city. Nonetheless, Mogadishu will never be the same again without the safe return of its historical cultural diversity that gave the city its unique identity and exceptional aura.  In effect, what the city’s residents need to focus on and practice daily is how to live with each other, to accept each other’s differences and to turn in peace spoilers. The city needs to promote new kind of schools, libraries, cultural centers and playgrounds for the young generation to grow without fear of bombs exploding in their midst. Then the city’s residents may be able to enjoy the sound of music to start playing again, a true form of renaissance. Nobody can change what has happened over the last 25 years, but if everyone starts thinking ‘what if’ today, the story will not be in the telling but in the thinking for a better tomorrow.

Africa, A Continent of Contrasts: Reflections on my recent visit of seven African states

By Heikal I. Kenneded

November 2, 2015

At first spectacle, Africa presents an enthralling landscape to most visitors, with its world-class resorts and golf courts, not to mention picturesque beaches that mesmerize your eyes and all around amazing scenery. However, these images belie an arrested development that shows an incredible disparity among various sectors of society. The significant challenges that currently avert the development of most sub-Saharan African states, include but are not limited to non-existing infrastructure, weak healthcare system, poor education and most importantly lack of job opportunities that pushes most of the continent’s young people to take to the high seas and risk their lives in order to seek opportunities in Europe and far beyond. Indeed, the continent is in the throes of yet another socio-economic and political awakening similar to the one experienced during its struggle to break free from the colonial overlords. During my all too brief and privileged visits to seven African states ranging from Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde, Nigeria, Uganda and the Congos, I couldn’t help but become conscious of a sense of contrast all over the continent.

Notwithstanding, for the last decade alone most African states had some of the best annual growth development product (GDP) in the world, which averaged between 3.16 and 7 percent that ushered them what the Economist magazine dubbed as, “The twilight of the resource curse.” No wonder most of the continent’s poor still live in deplorable conditions, with most communities lacking basic necessities, such as access to clean water and electricity. What ails Africa are three main factors that cripple its economic growth at levels significantly below most developing countries, which could be summarized: failed leadership that’s short of vision, corruption that perpetuates never-ending poverty and repression of dissent and the media The African continent now boasts several millionaires and few billionaires while tens of millions of others survive no more than few dollars a day. The postcolonial Africa that I encountered has a long way to go of catching up with the rest of the developing world, despite the incredible prevalence of natural resources (a third of the planet’s mineral reserves, a tenth of the oil and it produces two-thirds of the diamonds) and great manpower of its people.

Failure of leadership

Ironically, it seems the more things change in the African continent, the more they remain the same. First, there were the postcolonial elderly statesmen who clung to power for their dear life, but today the new leadership is rife with masters of platitudes, self- aggrandizement, living in denial, and driven by insatiable hunger of cronyism. There’s no argument that today most of Africa's root problems lie with the leadership who time and again failed to end poverty and develop their nations to compete with the rest of the world. Since good education and intelligence are indispensable ingredients for good leadership that might be where the continent’s poor leadership stems from. No wonder a great number of African leaders had poor educational backgrounds, not higher than graduating from secondary school, which may translate their lack of much needed vision to improve their nations’ poor performance in the economic index and development. Thus, the ripple effects of the continent’s poor leadership is manifested on every segment of these societies’ structure, including reduction of productivity, obstruction of development, worsening poverty and marginalization of the poor, which ultimately create social unrest that ultimately lead to a collapse of the nation-state.

The corruption curse

Another major problem with most African states is the unbearable kleptomaniac corruption for personal gain that afflicts every sect of the society and preserves the dysfunctional nature of the state. In fact, corruption doesn’t mean only of stealing the state’s coffers, but it’s also putting in charge of inept people in key positions of government. It is thus shocking to read the unsettling allegations of corruption in every African state’s political leadership, not to mention the profound economic disparities in the various segments of their societies. Driven by voracious greed and poverty most government officials deprive the coffers of their public resources. This in turn forces the local populace to turn to petty crime and violence, on a last resort basis. In fact, the corruption epidemic in most African countries is so debilitating that it has become an affront to their mere survival. For instance, in the most recent deadly Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, with a lack of any viable healthcare system and short on effective leadership, many of these nations could have easily been wiped off the face of the Earth on such a short notice, if the West didn’t come to their rescue.

Take for example two of the continents heavyweights, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), despite both countries being blessed with immense economic resources and manpower, still a great majority of their populace suffer gut-wrenching poverty and social injustices that perpetuate horrendous violence and other barbaric criminal acts that defy logic. Over 50 percent of the DRC’s population live below the poverty line, surviving on less than a dollar a day. Kinshasa’s streets are endemic with street children with an estimated 25,000 of them who survive by begging. Infectious diseases and malnutrition are also widespread because most hospitals and health centers across the DRC are almost nonexistent due to the healthcare system that collapsed during the years of conflict. On the other hand, Nigeria as one of the top oil producing countries in the world with an estimated oil revenues in excess of US$74 billion per year. Nigeria is also known as the power generator capital of the world, where half of the country’s homes are enveloped in tropical darkness while an estimated 60 million residents use generators. This is merely due to corruption of successive unscrupulous leaders who became notorious of siphoning the country’s coffers taking corruption to an art form that it permeates every level of the conducting in the country. Drawing from the Nigerian experience, no wonder throughout the African continent oil is viewed as a curse rather than a blessing.

Somalia is also a prime case of how a war-ravaged country is kept in the status quo of turmoil by its own leaders who pillage the country’s coffers as though it belonged to the enemy. Reading recently Abdirazak Fartag’s investigative report, “Their Own Worst Enemy” (http://www.keydmedia.net/download-files/Their-Own-worst-Enemy-Fartaag-Report-2014.pdf) is a resilient testimony of how successive Somali leaders “plundered Somalia’s public resources” for more than two decades since the civil war while the International community turned a blind eye. The author of this timely report explains in detail how lack of an effective and transparent financial management system has contributed to the country’s developmental demise and therefore corruption and money laundering has been consistent throughout the tenures of the various Somali administrations, including the current one.

Suppression of dissent and the media

Finally, the third great challenge facing the continent is the rampant suppression of dissent and censorship of the media. Despite the burgeoning of vibrant and active media sectors in most African states, they continuously come under numerous assaults that threaten them to freely express their opinions. It is indeed sad that most of the continents’ journalists operate under the hovering threat of being arrested, prosecuted by using anti-terrorism and public incitement laws. For instance, Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist, where they constantly become victims of their own government or other extremist elements. Naturally continued harassment, unnecessary obstruction, and intimidation of the media and dissenting groups combined to create a chilling effect on free expression seems to undercut the important role of the media to act as a watchdog of governments’ transgressions against the laws of their countries.

Ultimately, the surest way to bringing about change of Africa’s current state of despair would be to elect effective leaders, fight corruption to the bone and free the media to do its sacred job of overseeing government institutions. In the 2016 elections, Somalia will have that “second” chance again to elect an effective leadership with good ethics that’s free of corruption and self-enrichment.

Heikal I. Kenneded

heikalk@yahoo.com

Kinshasa, Congo DRC