The President

His journey of searching higher education has not been blocked by the nation experience of one of the continent’s longest and devastating civil war that destroyed the universities of the country he and people like him had in mine to study. He travelled to Khartoum, Sudan and started his undergraduate degree in geography at the University of Kordofan, before shifting to an Islamic law degree at Al-jaamac Al-maftuuxa University in Libya where he obtained his law degree in 1998, ten years after his secondary school.

Sheikh Sharif returned to his country in 2000, a time Somalia was under warlord’s control, a time two friends in Mogadishu neighborhoods could not visit each other as a result of clan separation and social mistrust. Scared and scarred people, the legacy of the civil war was everywhere in the country, and Sheikh Sharif’s had ambitions of saving Somalia, a dream no one could imagine it may come true in a few years.

He established Alshuruuq Agency, a cultural and heritage institution and the Federation of Adolescents in Mogadishu that created social interaction among Somalis in the capital, who never crossed virtual boundaries formed by war bosses. That step forward reshaped the city and brought together long term missing friends, schoolmates, religious leaders, women and elders.

In his mission of restoring law and order in a ruined, failed state, he became the regional attorney of his home province, Middle Shabelle, where he was the chairman of provincial court in Jowhar between 2001 and 2002. The warlord in charge of the province, Mohamed Omar Habeeb Dhere had never appreciated the uncompromised Islamic law that Sharif exercised which favors no one whether he or she is high profile or law profile, rich or poor, man or woman, white or black or clan superiority. 

He was expelled from the region by Mohamed Habeb, the governor of Middle Shabelle. Many of Jawhar residents and other visiting Somalis suffered after Sheikh Sharif left the region since the law enforcement forces listened one man’s words that become the regulation of that area.

He then went back to Mogadishu in 2002, and started teaching geography at Jubba secondary school since 2004. He is a simple man with humanity and respect, who never discriminated people regardless to race, religion and ethnicity.

The former chief executive officer of Somalia’s Foundation of Scholars during 2003 and 2005 was also the chairman of Sinai Islamic court in Mogadishu and later the leader of the Islamic Courts Union that controlled much of southern and central Somalia in the last have of 2006.

Under his six months government, Somalia has seen swift political and economical changes. Warlords were chased out, and their influence demolished. Roadblocks of peace removed in short time, with less expenses with the help of people’s support and capability, Mogadishu international airport and port were reopened after sixteen years which majority of Somali people considered as a long waited victory that every other force failed to bring, even with deployment of international forces under U.N mandate in 1993.

His short lived government was overthrown in December 2006 by Ethiopian forces claimed they were helping the Transitional Federal government of Somalia, a fragile, warlords dominated and divided institutions that did not do a single task of its assignment since it was established at Mbagathi, in Nairobi in 2004. He fled to the border between Kenya and Somalia, where he was detained, with three other Somalis, by Kenyan police on January 21, 2007 near the Hulugo border. He met the US Ambassador to Kenya for talks regarding cooperation with the TFG. He was under the protection of Kenyan authorities staying at a hotel in Nairobi. On February 1, 2007 Sharif Ahmed was released from Kenyan police authorities. By February 8, Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed had gone to Yemen.

As exile opposition leader, the former leader of the ICU was in many foreign capitals in search of a headquarters of his proposal of establishing the Alliance for Re-liberation of Somalia. In a big conference in Asmara, the Eritrean capital, he and his colleagues brought together nearly 500 delegates from Islamists, parliamentarians, civil society and Diaspora in September 2007. The representatives elected Sheikh Sharif as the chairman of the new opposition umbrella in 14 September 2007 and adopted the action plan of the institution.

In Feb. 2008, he had meetings with European envoys in Cairo setting up an agenda for a next Nairobi meeting between ARS and international community members where Sharif and Ould- Abdalla, U.N special envoy to Somalia signed a memorandum of understanding in Nairobi which paved the way the establishment of national unity government.

In June 9, 2008, Sheikh Sharif’s ARS and the Somali government have signed an agreement the U.N has praised as “a good progress and a courageous step forward to restoring the dignity of their wounded country ´´.

In the agreement, the government and ARS agreed “Within a period of 120 days of the signing of this agreement the TFG will act in accordance with the decision that has already been taken by the Ethiopian Government to withdraw its troops from Somalia after the deployment of a sufficient number of UN Forces” that gave Sheikh Sharif a huge support of the people who realized Ethiopian troops will not leave without a consensus in the political parties.

After two years in exile, he returned to Mogadishu in December 10, 2008 before Ethiopian forces leave the country receiving huge crowds of welcome in the capital unlike any other leader.

Under the agreement, 200 parliamentarians from his alliance joined in an expanded parliament of 550 members late December 2008.

Sheikh Sharif realized the need of serving to his nations after his parliamentary block of the ARS suggested that “they want Sh.sharif as their candidate of the election”. Sharif Ahmed, has accepted the proposal at Lisiesta Hotel in Djibouti, and a group of excited supporters picked him up waving Somalia’s flag.

On Saturday, January 31, 2009, the Somalia expanded parliament elected Sheikh Sharif, moderate Islamist opposition as new national president during a run-off vote in Djibouti. Ahmed passed the necessary majority of votes, 213 just before 4.00 am local time (01.00 GMT) during an all night session of parliament under a U.N brokered plan to forge a unity government in Somalia.

He was sworn in the next day at Kempinski Hotel. The president’s full day in office, was spent in the African Union summit in Addis where Somalia tops the agenda of the meeting.