THE NORTHERN FRONTIER DISTRICT: The Struggles of Deghow Maalim Sambul

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.

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[1] Makina, A. (2022). The Northern Frontier District: The Struggles of Sultan Deghow Maalim Sambul (5^th 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.