[How does Somaliland fair in effective and prompt communication, locally and overseas?
Now you see, now you hear, IC and who ever else concerned!
No more covert activities any more. It is in the open now. It is overt. Diini of puntland proofed what somaliland was saying all along:
puntland president declared war against somaliland.That means, Somalia is at war with somaliland. No ambiguity here.
Let us not miss the opportunity the president of puntland, a regional state of somalia gave us this time for free! We have to save his speech in Galkacayo as to display and replay for our people, for the IC and for all concerned.
We have to craft our narrative by quoting him, what he said in a campaign rally in “Galkacayo”. He emphatically declared that puntland is now openly preparing to fully attack somaliland! In fact he was in this business already! We knew that.
It was factual and practical matter that puntland crossed the border and invaded Lascanood and engaged direct war with somaliland national defence forces there from day one of the Lascanood war. They are still there!
They were playing as a covert operations before, while it was overt actions all along. Their POW are in somaliland prisons.
Why different now?
Because the world and those in doubt now heard the puntland president’s declaration of war against somaliland!
Do they really? Only if we tell it promptly before others tell the story in their misleading way!
Let us be frank here. The government is not fairing well in public relations here. They are slow to tell their story.They are reactive.Too bad!
It seems to me that the whole government looks for one man to do the-walking-and- the talking, and that is the president! Where is every body else?!!
I think the government must do better than this. They have to manage issues in the right way and on time, before the enemy gets a chance to take over and corrupt it and interpret it like they want.
Remember in our prayer, the ‘Imam’ tells the believers to straighten the line and fill the spaces, so that the ‘Satan’ may not fill the space.”suduu- alfarag” he says. In the same way the government must not give our enemies time to define them and set their ( false) narrative before the government’s ( true) narrative.
Somaliland information agencies must capitalize this. Somaliland government agencies are always slow and reactive and insufficient! That must change.
Somaliland’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and national borders was attached by puntland of somalia in plain sight.This must be unambiguously clear to everyone who doupted ànd wasn’t sure before. Even those who pretended they didn’t see what was clear to the naked eyes! Now they see, or must see. Now they hear, or must hear loud and clear! However It is somaliland government’s job that this seeing and hearing must happen through her public relations effort. We are weak and behind in this PR.
A good example of the government’s dismal failure was being late to explain the Loyacado incident where a soldier shot another soldier! The government was supposed to inform and explain what happened and how it happened and what the government is going to do about this incident, fast and on time before any body else.They were late to explain the procedures and processes. They were late to put up their narrative straight.
This incident became every body’s business. Our enemies did their way and got an opportunity there. Even tribes from corner to corner were talking the issue before the Ministries of Defense and interior utter a word of the issue!! Much later Minister Kahin show up. In fact that is the definition of failure in PR.
PS: somaliland government, particularly the concerned departments are always slow to put the government’s case on the front banner in the local and in the international arena. Unfortunately they are slow, or some times no show, otherwise reactive in that front.
In this age of fast moving mass media the concerned departments of the government failed in this front, and failure must never be acceptable in our situation where we have.
BY; PROF IBRAHIM MAHAMED MEAD.
CANADA