End the row over Constitutional Review process

The country’s leadership must step in once and fall all to end the stalemate over the constitutional review process

President Mohamed Farmaajo addressing the media in Mogadishu after meeting with UN chief António Guteress. Photo: Villa Somalia|March 7, 2017

MONDAY’s PROTEST letter by the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on the Constitutional Review and Implementation accusing Constitutional Affairs Minister Abdi Jibril of a ‘one man show’ stance and stifling the process is no new development but a worrying one.

The country is back to another round of tussles between the Oversight Committee (OC) and Minister Hosh barely four months after signing a Memorandum of Understanding midwifed by Federal Parliament leadership and the Executive.

The November MoU followed a fall out between Hosh on the one side and OC and Review and Implementation Commission (RIC) on the other. The two had raised similar concerns as Monday’s against the minister.

With the tug of war between the two seemingly endless, the country must remain concerned, nay, worried about the fate of the Constitutional Review and Implementation process. In the short term, the completion of the review process is critical in preparing the country for the 2020 elections expected to be based on one-person-one vote basis and the realization of the post New Deal vision. President Mohamed Farmaajo pledged after his election in 2017 to fast-track the process for completion in 2019.

In the long term, a new constitution anchored on public input is germane in Somalia’s recovery process. It is the insurance of our posterity. A number of issues such as power sharing between the Federal Government and Federal Member States are crucial in establishing the building blocks for a stable and prosperous Somalia.

We remain alive to the fact that constitutional review process can be a long and torturous journey. Various actors-state and non-state will endevour to push their agenda and drive the process to suit certain ends. Somalia is no exception.

Somalis have come a long way and cannot trade their constitution for anything. It is time to end the shenanigans that have defined the relationship between the Constitutional Affairs Ministry and the OC/RIC. President Mohamed Farmaajo and PM Hassan Khaire must step in and put things in order in the Constitutional Affairs Ministry and so should the Federal Parliament leadership in the OC.