By Goth Mohamed Goth
On the third day of the ongoing Hargeysa International book fair, Panel discussion on Somaliland Justice Sector was held.
Prof. Adam Haji Ali Ahmed is the President of Somaliland’s Supreme Court, Constitutional Court & them High Judicial Council, appointed to his current post in May 2015.The chief Justice shared with the audience the changes undertaken by the justice sector under his leadership and the future plans for the Somaliland Justice Sector.
He begun by stating, “There has been much focus in recent years on reform of the formal justice sector institutions in Somaliland. The sector has been improving people’s confidence in the formal judicial system and improving the quality and independence of the system.
Prof. Adam Haji Ali Ahmed further added, “There has been investment in the capacity building of judiciary personnel, expansion of the reach of the courts beyond the urban centres, improvement of access to the formal courts, and active engagement in addressing the underlying perceived and actual barriers to justice such as impunity and corruption within the system.Thus, while reforms of the judiciary are moving in the right direction, there is need to ensure that complementary reforms to take place within the other institutions in order to ensure effective delivery of justice.
Lastly, the Chief Justice noted, “It is important to ensure that citizens gain the necessary leverage from having the ability to freely access the laws that govern them, know their legal rights, equality before the law, understand the limits of public power and to ensure adherence to the principles of the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law, legal transparency and through implementing those measure we restore public confidence towards the judiciary.
This year’s partnership with Ghana as the guest country represents HIBF continued and shared commitment to fostering tolerance through cooperation in the continent and across the world. We respond culturally, if not politically, to the calls for African unity uttered in Ghana’s revolutionary throes and persisting through its cultural production. Consistent with HIBF belief that political, social, and economic developments go hand in hand with cultural development, HIBF see its collaboration with Ghanaian writers, poets, musicians, journalists, activists, and scholars as a catalyst for local, regional, and global progress. This exchange, spanning the latitude of the continent, will allow us to learn from Ghana’s example while also strengthening the ties of our collective aspirations for open and tolerant societies.
Professor Kwame Karikari is the former Executive Director of the MFWA. He has been for several years a professor in journalism and mass communication at the School of Communication Studies at the University of Ghana; Professor Atukwei Okai, a poet, academic, cultural activist, and Secretary-General of the Pan-African Writers’ Association, whose poetry has been published and translated into six languages and merited inclusion in a variety of international anthologies; Amma Darko, novelist and author of Beyond The Horizon; Esther Armah, an award nominated tri-media freelance journalist, whose work spans print, radio and television; and Joe Addo, an architect from Accra, trained at the Architectural Association in London, who has worked in Finland, the UK, and the US.
Prof Karikari , head of the delegation from the Ghana International Book Fair speaking during the panel discussion said: ” Suppression and media censorship are solution and that the present government should allow opening of private radio station in the country .
Amma Darko on leadership said, “Leadership is not only based on the law and the courts, leadership also covers community development.”
Amma Darko to discuss the role of leadership of the youth said, “Young people often are responsible for the leadership and community building.”
Mahamed Barud Ali: The Mourning Tree (Revised edition)
This prison memoir will not only give first-hand information of the experience of the brutalities of Siyad Barre’s Somalia but also of the life of a nomad child who is brought to the city to live with his aunt because there was no work for him due to the fact that his father did not own any camels to be looked after. In the city while growing up, hunger was never far away. That motivated Mahamed to perform well at school which gave him the opportunity to go to the United Kingdom. After he earned his university degree, he went back to his home town Hargeysa where he met young professionals’ like him. They decided to volunteer for their community, what became to be known by the international community as Hargeysa Self-help group and locally as UFFO. For their noble acts, Mahamed and his colleagues were imprisoned and what followed were eight long lonely years, where the studying of insects was the main entertainment of the day. The reasons why they were freed, while at the same time the rest of their community had been destroyed, were as strange and surprising as the reasons why they were jailed in the first place were bizarre. There was no time in Mohamed’s life to get depressed or discouraged when he and his group were freed as the reconstruction of the country had to start immediately.
Chair: Ahmed Muxumed Madar was a member of UFFO. He is the Chairman of the Anti-corruption and Good Governance Committee.
Joe Addo: Leadership in Architecture
Joe Addo is an architect from Accra. Trained at the Architectural Association in London, he has worked in Finland, the UK, and the US. He opened his own practice in 1991 in Los Angeles, where he also cofounded the A + D Museum before returning to Ghana in 2004. He is currently the CEO of Constructs R + D and Chairman of the ArchiAfrika Foundation, which works to integrate socio-cultural design into the discourse on African architecture and development. Joe participated in the HIBF 2015, facilitating a discussion among Somaliland architects on the physical spaces of African cities and the current transformation of Somaliland’s cities. This year, he will share their approach for development in the historic Jamestown, Accra, where leadership and creativity is needed to avert the catastrophe of gentrification and overdevelopment.
Chair: Mohamed Elmi is an East Africa-based consultant with extensive experience in fund management, financial planning, management consulting and project management. He is the founding member of Synergy Africa, a Somali think tank based in Dubai, Somaliland, Dijbouti and Kenya.
Special event – Community Cohesion Dinner
Venue: Hargeysa Cultural Centre
Host: Hargeysa Cultural Centre & Somaliland Immigration Department
HCC is pleased to host a community-building dinner. We have invited members of the diverse communities living and working in Somaliland to a wonderful evening of food, Somali culture and celebration. We hope this dinner will bring people together and help us build on our shared values to achieve a common vision and a sense of belonging for all communities. In Somaliland the diversity of backgrounds and circumstances is appreciated and positively valued. We hope to celebrate this diversity and hope this leads to strong and positive relationships between people from different backgrounds in the workplace, in the schools and within neighbourhoods.
Traditional Dance; Live music (Cabdinasir Macallin Caydiid and his band); Poetry in translation (Martin Orwin, linguist and scholar and Ahmed Aw Geedi and Hassan Dahir Ismail “Weedhsame”).
