Abdirahman Mursal

Between 1915 and 1918, according to the East African Protectorate (EAP) colonial administrators’ perspectives , the Aulihan had been waging sacrilegious wars against the British and the Samburu. Under the command of Abdulrahman Mursal of the Wafate subclan–a man who vowed to turn a blind eye to any form of British sovereignty in his area of jurisdiction–finally, in 1916, succeeded in killing the Colonial District Commissioner (DC), Lieutenant Francis Elliot, at Serenli–a small settlement known to Somalis as Sarinley that is close to the current Somali border town of Bardere–named either after the towering Hyphaena compresaa or Commelina sp. trees that are common in that area. According to Sultan Deghow, almost all of Abdirahman Mursal’s fighters were from his clan and that there were no other Somali clans involved in his battles with the locals and the colonial administration. To many Somalis, Abdirahman Mursal was neither a criminal nor a cattle rustler, but a valiant fighter who was against any form of foreign influence especially Britain’s overwhelmingly unprecedented subjugation of his people. His hatred for foreign domination remains in record when he proclaimed as an oath of defiance, “By Allah, I will not be a slave to the Government.”