Somalia’s former prime minister returns to Mogadishu

Former prime minister and a presidential aspirant Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo was received by hundreds of his supporters in the Aden Ade Airport in the capital, Mogadishu.

According to our correspondent at the airport, the convoy and hundreds of Mogadishu residents have escort Farmajo to his residential house.

Farmajo is believed to be the most popular politician in Somalia.

Farmaajo declared his candidacy for the 2016 presidential elections in August, making this a probable second shot after losing out in the 2012 poll to the outgoing President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

Farmaajo was ousted in a UN backed deal in 2011 which saw the extension of the mandates of then president Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden and their deputies until 20 August 2012, when new elections were to be organised.

Despite his earlier stand that only parliament had the final authority to hound him out of office, Farmaajo bowed to pressure in June 19, 2011 following the Kampala Accord in which Speaker Aden had ruled Farmaajo’s exit as a condition of the deal.

After his departure from government in 2011, Farmaajo joined the presidential race in 2012 but got barely 12 votes out of the possible 275. With that he went back to academia teaching in American universities to date.