Somalia is a beautiful country, and its people are indigenous to the Horn of Africa. They have given their name to the region as the Somali Peninsula. Somali history goes back to the myths of time, before even the ancient Egyptians, who called the Land of the Somali, the land of their ancestry and the land of the Gods.

Somalis still continue to maintain and enjoy some of the old Egyptian-claimed cultures, including some dress styles and tools like the hangol (the ‘Was’ Sceptre) and the Barkin or the headrest and many others. They were and still are of Somali origin, who still use them today. The current Somali language maintains many words of the Ancient Egyptians. They include words like ‘aar’ for lion, ‘Besat’ for cat, ‘Usha’ for sceptre, ‘Dab’ for fire, ‘Hes’ for song, and many others.

Somalis also share many cultural ties with other Cushitic peoples, like the Saho and the Afar. The Somali culture is rich in oral traditions including poetry, storytelling, music and indeed, sciences such as astronomy, weather sciences, medicinal sciences, agriculture and livestock rearing and husbandry. Somalis are said to have identified the monsoon winds that blow in the seas around them through their voyages to Arabia, India, Persia and East Asia. A Somali always stands out of every other race or people and is easily identifiable as Somali, one of their unique traits.

The native land of the Somali is currently harsh and dry and is climatically hostile. In the past, however, it would appear to have been more of a savannah country with all the animal folk, vegetation and birds of the East African savannah countries. It is what has enabled the Somali to thrive with their livestock which they have tamed long ago including camels, cattle, goats and sheep. The Somali sheep is another unique animal and is adorned by a black head and can only live and thrive in Somali lands. Somalis were also, indeed, the first to tame the one humped camel, the dromedary.

They cope with all kinds of environments – from deserts to icy and snowy countries and have travelled far from their native regions to establish large diasporas across the globe. They are present in West Asia, the far east, India and South Asia, Europe and North America, and Africa, especially the eastern and southern rims of the continent. They contribute to the cultures and economies of their host countries of which they are mostly citizens, while maintaining their connections with the homelands and heritage.

The world knows that Somalis as a resilient people, with a strong cultural heritage and identity, and they thrive both in their homelands and abroad. It is both how and why they have survived and continue to survive the harsh regimes, both the country and people, have been subjected to from civil wars to bad governance and religious terrorism.

It is the story of this article and in particular, when one of the infrastructures that root the people are abused by the present day corrupt political class, which has been imposed on the country, blaming all their shortcomings on the clan structure of the people.

The imposed corrupt political class work through a clan-based federal infrastructure, which divides the people and country into clan fiefdoms, severing the ages-old Somali way of life where a Somali would be able to settle and thrive in any part of the country. Today it is broken into clan owned lands and people cannot move freely within the Somali state, as was in the past.

This division of the Somali people and country started when regions of Somali lands were slashed out of the original home and joined to other countries. Currently we have the Somali State of Ethiopia which only partially represents the Somali space in Ethiopia, the other being in the Oromia State of that country.

Another part of the Somali country, the NFD (the North Frontier District), is in Kenya. It was taken away despite a referendum to the contrary and added to Kenya. A third part, Ex-French Somaliland, currently stands out alone as a separate country (the Republic of Djibouti).

The division of the Somali country did not stop there and now involves breaking down the Somali Republic into clan fiefdoms. They are Puntland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle, Banadir, Southwest State, Jubaland and Somaliland, which wants to secede from the country. Other clan enclaves are also vying to become states, and SSC Khatumo is perhaps the closest to achieve this, while others are still striving for their place among the clan-based governance infrastructure in the Somali landscape.

The whole concept of clan enclaves in the country is not correct and divides the people. The clan infrastructure which once united the people is now being deployed as the most divisive instrument. The corrupt political class, which has been used by the foreign interfering nations, use the clan-based system as the ultimate control instrument of the Somali people and Somali country.

The political class uses the clan infrastructure as follows:

Positions of authority are not used for their actual purpose, as instrument of public service, but are used for personal enrichment and personal enhancement. They do not even benefit the clan of the holder of a position.
There is no transparency or accountability within the government establishments (federal or regional). Little or nothing is apparently really documented and opaque processes, and restricted public access to information are used to hoodwink the poor population of Somalia. The clans, other than the corrupt public servant or corrupt clan-elected political person, do not benefit anything from the political system of today.
Clan loyalty is used to facilitate corrupt practices. When caught, it is easy to cry wolf that one is being targeted because of one’s clan affiliation. It is a system which makes it difficult to enforce legal and ethical standards. This is an abuse of the clan infrastructure.
Law enforcement agencies, a politicized judiciary, and the general absence of the will to investigate powerful individuals, because of their clans, perpetuates the corruption of the political class. This is again another abuse of the good clan infrastructure of the society.

Corruption in the country is enabled by the unethical political class, and this devastates the country’s socio-economic developmental possibilities. The main culprit, of course after the foreign interfering parties, is the country’s corrupt political class, who hide behind the good clan infrastructure of the country, which they have turned into an instrument of manipulation and exploitation and use it as protection when they are caught red-handed.

The corrupt political class of Somalia is perhaps the worst anywhere. They do not put back anything into the society or even the clan that brought an individual into the political scene in the first place let alone the Somali society and country. They employ their unskilled children in almost every field and especially the security and finance apparatus of the country.

No wonder investors and genuine foreign parties avoid the country, which despite its vast natural resources remains poor and always holding its hands out begging for help, unless they are taking advantage of the country’s resources and especially its geostrategic location.

The whole continent is full of a corrupt political class, all potbellied, many overstaying in power for decades, and no wonder President Trump uses negative names to denote it. They do not even try to correct themselves but shun like babies and continue on the same illegal and corrupt processes using their idiosyncratic tribal/clan instincts to ruin their countries. They have no shame about their behavior and no respect for their faith, peoples and countries.

Corruption in Somalia is the most pronounced and undermines the neutrality of governance institutions and procedures. Corruption, therefore, contributes to the rampant instability in the country. The government cannot provide the proper public services, it was supposed to deliver. The legal system, the judiciary system, the healthcare and educational systems and the social systems are all derailed and remain underdeveloped.

Corruption has, indeed, ruined Somalia and its people through its weakening of governance and governance institutions (misappropriation of funds and through lack of law) and fuels insecurity, indirectly empowering terrorism and other armed groups and hence undermining the country’s military and other security services.

Corruption hinders economic development by deterring both domestic and international investments and hence reduces possibilities of employment opportunities and economic growth, which eventually leads to aid and funds collected as taxes being diverted for personal gains and not for the development of the country.

Corruption is, indeed, the cause of citizen mistrust of the system of governance and the failure to produce effective leadership in the country. Many of those who could have helped the country deal with its dire socio-economic problems inherited from the civil wars, shun away from the country and its corrupt politics. They do not want to stain their reputations when dirty politicians are mudding the waters. Somalia, thus, unfortunately remains, a ruined country by its corrupt political class deployed by many foreign interfering nations.

Somalia and Somalis are both fascinating, but both are unfortunately reeling from the pressures of an unsympathetic political class that have risen of late in the country, which remains still ruined after more than thirty four odd years of civil wars, warlords, terrorism, and now corrupt politicians.