Mohamed Omer, Haatuf’s Ace in The Hole

By Ahmed Sheikh

Mohamed Omer, the rogue reporter wanabe for the trashy tabloid rag called “Haatuf News”, has wittingly or unwittingly become a convenient tool used by the chauvinist editors at Haatuf News. Lately this small minded huckster has become the eminence grise for Awdal haters and purveyors of the politics of divide and rule. Mohamed seems wedded for reasons that I do not understand to the peddlers of bizarre conspiracy theories against Awdal and its people, such theories are increasingly becoming more popular among certain elites in Somaliland.

His petty, underhanded and disreputable two cents which are nothing more than quibbling over trifles are portrayed as serious analysis by the smug, jingoist tribal hacks at Haatuf News. The lazy, dim-witted, mischievous Mohamed Omer serves up his paymasters comic caricatures of monolithic Awdalites, portraying them sometimes as hapless buffoons while on other times as conniving, tribally motivated mob intent on taking over Somaliland. For a small fee Mohamed is willing to carry water for the foxy entrepreneurs of tribal hate in Somaliland, destroying along the way the good name of Awal and its people.

Qaran News which hitherto has shied away from publishing such tracts have jumped on the band-wagon, copying Mohamed Omer’s recent screed (Aragtida Reer Awdal Go’aankii Golaha Guurtidu Ka Soo Saareen Khilaafkii Baarlamaanka Cusub? Warbixin — Maxamed Cumar) from Haatuf News. It is time that some one remind Haatuf News and its ilk that a human filth like Mohamed Omer isn’t going to be their ace in the hole for long. Once he is exposed as the meek Uncle Tom that he is, he won’t be taken seriously either by Awdalites or any other self respecting person no matter what clan they belong to in Somaliland.

The only thing he will do for them is to preach to the choir, agent provocateurs and the merchants of tribal hate at Haatuf News. Perhaps it is time to remind the demented demagogues at Haatuf and others who think like them; long before there was Mohamed Omer and his little soap box, long before the advent of tribal tabloids like Haatuf News, it was the delegates from the Awdal region who threw down the gauntlet and challenged the rest of the gathered delegates at the famous Burao conference ( the declaration of Somaliland) to the amazement of the entire high command of the SNM at the time.

What is frustrating about Mohamed Omer’s sleazy dispatches from Awdal is how little they are developed in terms of their originality as news items on the ground in Awdal or how little they resemble as pieces of political commentary about Awdal’s state of affairs. Mohamed just regurgitates popular clichés as evidence of new thinking or attitudes among Awdalites, creating invariably the impression of one monolithic people who live in Awdal. Do Mohamed and his paymasters realize that Awdalites are not one homogeneous clan who are all in lock step and barrel with each other? The two major clans who inhabit in Awdal region don’t always see eye to eye on the political situation in Somaliland. How can Mohamed Omer and his Master speak about the people of Awdal feel this, that or the other?

Mr. Mohamed, please don’t be a tease, be for real, a tease is “someone who promises something but does not deliver”. You cast yourself as an expert on Awdal politics, culture or popular attitudes of its people but the only thing you have some proven expertise is how to please the penny wise and pound foolish editors at Haatuf News.

Obviously Mohamed Omer is an attention whore which sadly allot of people are these days, he is really a coward at heart whose self-righteous rage against Awdal is throwing him into the lion’s den. By now it is apparent to all concerned that the folks at Haatuf News are using Mohamed as a useful idiot who tells them what they want to about Awdal and its people.