Authored By Adan Makina
Published By: Audi Publishers, Nairobi,
Kenya
August 5, 2022.
A Book Review
The book, “The Northern Frontier District: The Struggles of Deghow Maalim Sambul” by author Adan Makina and published by Dr. Audi Publishing based in Nairobi, Kenya is an intermixture of descriptive, narrative and expository composition of recollections of tales of Somalis, even though it mainly focuses on the major events that occurred during Somalia’s claim to the Northern Frontier District (NFD) that was handed over to Kenya by the British colonial administration before its final departure in the early sixties. Among the legendary figures who took part in the struggle for NFD were a group of men hailing from different Somali clans together with the Boran–the first born of the nine sons of the Oromo plus the Rendille. While the main biographical character is the living octogenarian Sultan Deghow Maalim Sambul, the book carries captivating historical events that will hopefully give the reader the urge to keep on reading it to the end. With over 500 pages, the book brings together different topics such as anthropology, paleontology, ornithology, toponymy and etymology, history and historiography, theology, comprehensive pronunciamentos, botany and ethnography and other defining factors that are unique to Somalis only.
A hardcover book with colored picturesque, it took the author
over five years to bring it to its current feature. From ancient times when
Abyssinia and Somalia were both ruled by the Egyptians of aforetime, the book
traces the history of Somalis in order to evade the fictional research
penumbration (from penumbra) of foreign contemporary writers whose penmanship
remain engrossed in suspicion to this day. According to Sultan Deghow Maalim
sambul–an octogenarian who is loaded with tons of previously unrevealed
hair-raising narrations, “Somali history is either in par with ancient Egyptian
history if not older.”
Jailed by the British colonial
administration in Kenya at the infamous Manyani (baboon) Prison that is surrounded
by wild baboons like the Papio hamadryas–the baboon that inspired Queen
Hatshepsut during her voyage to the “Land of Gods” or the “Land of Punt” and
currently known as Manyani Maximum Prison, he was also placed behind bars by
the new Republic of Kenya in Kajiado Prison after the British departure and likewise
incarcerated in complete isolation by the military regime of Somalia. The
prison that resembles the infamous Devil’s Island in French Guiana that held famous
men like the innocent French artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus in 1894 on
trumped up charges of spying for Germany even though he was later exonerated, the
surroundings of Manyani Prison is also home to the African forest elephant (Loxodonta
cyclotis). While in incarceration at Kajiado Prison in 1966, one night, the
Kenya government hatched a plot to execute Sultan Deghow and his Deputy Wako
Hapi Taro of the Boran/Oromo.
However,
since there were dedicated Somalis who worked with the British administration,
a young Somali man who hailed from the Sheikh Isxaaq clan of
the Habr Yunis sub-clan, upon getting the security details, immediately took
action to save them from the intended murderous acts. Sofe rescued them from
the hands of Geel Qaad (camel rustler)–a Somali and cousin of Deghow and a
Kikuyu by the name Kigandi. Both men were responsible for extra-judicial
killings since they were from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The
young man’s father worked for Karen Blixen, meaning Sofe was just like Karen’s
child. Karen was a Danish lady from Copenhagen and it was Farah Aden, Sofe’s
father, under instructions from his White male employer and coffee farmer who instructed
him to travel to Kilindini Harbor in Mombasa and bring her to his farm in the
White Highlands. On seeing him, Karen was overtaken by admiration for Farah
because she mistook him for an Indian since he was handsome, tall and wore a
turban on his head. Currently in Nairobi, there is a suburb named after her.
The
reason behind constructing impenetrable maximum prisons like that of Devil’s
Island by the French and Robben Island of South Africa by the Dutch that housed
men like Imam Abdallah ibn Qadi Abdus Salaam (1780-1793) for his anti-colonial activities and Sayed
Abdurahman Moturu–
a former Prince of the Madura and one of Cape Town's
first imams who was imprisoned in 1740 until his death in 1754, was to dissuade
the prisoners from escaping and if it so happened, they would have been
devoured by sea carnivores like the Killer Whales, Great White Sharks, and
Barracudas and on land, Polar Bears would be in waiting. Others who were kept in solitude included
Nelson Mandela, Walter
Sisulu, Jacob Zuma, and Ahmed Kathrada etc. As for Manyani Maximum Prison, it
was within the Tsavo National Park that was known for Man-Eaters like lions,
leopards, cheetahs and other carnivores. Jailed with Deghow and Wako Hapi was
Alex Kolkolle from the Rendille–an ethnic group known to Somalis as RerDiid,
meaning those who abandoned their relatives but are currently RerDoon, denoting
seekers of those they abandoned in the past.
The biographee, a man who has a
degree in political science is also a military strategist trained abroad. Prior
to the outbreak of the 1977-78 War between Somalia and Ethiopia over the
Somali-occupied region in Ethiopia that was handed over to Ethiopia in 1957 by
Britain, France and Italy who were referred to as Allied Powers after the
Ethiopian Emperor complained that he was “surrounded by an ocean of Pagans”–a
term implying Muslims from different ethnic groups, the first batch of fighters
sent by Somalia’s military were primarily taken forcefully from Qoryooley
Refugee Camp that was home to the former Northern Frontier District Liberation
Front (NFDLF), the Somali Abbo or the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the
Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), formerly the Ogaden National Liberation
Front (ONLF). Since the biographee was against the misuse of his guerilla
fighters in the run up to the Somalia-Ethiopia, Major General Mohamed Siyad
Barre, seeing the sultan as an opposition to his militaristic ideals,
indefinitely placed him in total incarceration for a complete year.
Regardless of the torturous detention by President Barre,
Sultan Deghow narrates that in later years, the president transformed in to a Fidus
Achates. In one encounter between the two men after the president tendered
him an invitation, to avoid dying intestate, the leader of the military regime
revealed to Deghow information that required dissemination to the Somali people
in case he died before him. It was information related to the bloodless coup
d’état of 1969 and how he mischievously took over power from the inheritor
to-be. However, it was when
SNM captured Hargeisa in 1991, that Barre sought the help of Sultan Deghow.
“In a face-to-face conversation between Barre
and Deghow, the main agenda of the meeting centered on getting military help
from Deghow since he had a strong guerrilla force inside Somalia who, had he
accepted, would have energized the ailing Somali Army and denervated the forces
that had complete control over the northern territories. By then the Somali
army had fragmented tremendously with military desertions, indiscipline and
disloyalty becoming the norm. Feeling defeated and on the verge of collapse,
Barre did everything he could do to convince Deghow to provide him the
necessary assistance to subdue the SNM that transformed into a force to reckon
with. However, Deghow who was a man who believed in Somalinness without regard
to clan moiety, totally opposed Barre’s militaristic obsessions.
In response to Barre’s
request, Deghow reminded him that his forces were guests of Somalia and that
their presence in Somalia had nothing to do with Somali internal affairs.
Tempers cooled down after Barre’s son, General Maslax intervened by siding with
Deghow on the issue of military assistance. By then, Deghow, who was a military
strategist and also trained in political science had already made up his mind
not to support Barre because he was well aware of the general injustices and
the hardships, he imposed on the people of Somaliland who, voluntarily for the
love of Somalinness, accepted the July 1, 1960 unification with southern
Italian Somaliland to form what became known as the Somali Democratic Republic.
Furthermore, Deghow
felt perturbed and flabbergasted every time he recalled how Barre placed his
own Somali loving fighters from the NFDLF in the frontline during the Ogaden
War of 1977-78 that exacerbated Somalia’s approaching collapse.”[1]
It was the Ogaden War that set the stage for Jimmy Carter’s first foreign
policy assignment and the demise of détente.[2]
On
the other hand, Deghow met Muamar Qaddafi of Libya after a delegation from
South Africa that was headed by Nelson Mandela left earlier even though he met
delegates from Gibraltar and Liberia with Charles Taylor as the head of the
delegation. After leaving Sirta in Libya, Deghow flew to London to meet with a
half-dozen men from Mwakenya–an opposition movement from Kenya that
wanted to have unity with NFDLF so they could topple the twenty-four years
reigning President Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi (deceased). Deghow bluntly told
them that he could not reach a decision alone without the presence or knowledge
of his companions. The Mwakenya delegation was led by a famous professor
from the Kikuyu ethnic group of Kenya–the same professor who described in one
of his books the sultan’s cousin millionaire Mahat Kuno Roble “intelligent
illiterate millionaire.”
With
Somalis being the toughest in Africa in terms of business entrepreneurship and
political participations especially by the Somali diaspora in foreign lands,
and other sectors such as education and even sports, you may be surprised to
learn that even among Somali mothers, historian and Canadian Professor Ray
Beachey (deceased 2010)–a man who taught prominent leaders like Benedicto Kiwanuka, Uganda's first prime minister;
Yusuf Lule, the country's provisional president in 1979 and Kenya’s former President Mwai Kibaki (deceased), at the former
Makerere University of Uganda–later Makerere University–in his book The Warrior Mullah, 1990, recorded that,
one of the three wives of Seyid Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, Xasna Dhoorre,
commanded one of his nine well-armed divisions. Though we do not have her
photo, the book contains the photo of her brother Commander Abshir Dhoorre and credit
goes to Mohamed Nuh who provided the author of the book the photo of the male dervishes’
commander. Usually, a military division ranges from 10,000 to 25,000 well-armed
soldiers and commanded by a Major General while assisted by two Brigadiers. For
Xasna Dhorreh, she was short of attaining only three ranks to head a nation’s army:
Lieutenant General, General and Field Marshall respectively.
[1] Makina, A. (2022).
The Northern Frontier District: The Struggles of Sultan Deghow Maalim Sambul (5th
edition). Dr. Audi Publishing. ISBN 978-9914-40-480-7.
[2] Jackson, D. R. (2010). The Ogaden war
and the demise of detente. The Annals of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science, 632(1), 26-40.
