The country gradually turned into a battlefield and highly indoctrinated clerics turned mosques into platforms to voice out a strict application of Islamic laws. It does not only symbolise the end of the Italian rule in the southern regions, but is also the day the former British Somaliland Protectorate and the Italian-governed Somali territory united to form the Somali Republic, thus called the Unity Day. After week-long jubilation, the united country in the Horn of Africa started a journey, exercising the democracy inherited from the two colonial powers. In just nine years, Somalia had managed three general elections that resulted in the two presidents and three prime ministers. The army officers in Somalia, perhaps saw themselves as lagging behind, and sought to take over power.

Source: Daily Nation July 02, 2020 12:22 UTC