A court in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday issued a warrant for the arrest of Ahmed Madobe on charges including \u201cundermining national unity\u201d.<\/p>\n
This came shortly after Madobe was re-elected president of the southern state of Jubaland in an election not recognised by the federal government.<\/p>\n
The decision marks a new rise in tensions in the historically stormy relationship between the former warlord, who has held power in the region since 2012, and the government in Mogadishu.<\/p>\n
Ahmed Madobe was re-elected for a third term by the Jubaland regional parliament on Monday in a process deemed \u201cillegal\u201d by the central government, which said he was ineligible because he had already served the maximum two terms allowed by the constitution.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, a regional court said it had accepted the request of the country\u2019s attorney general to issue an arrest warrant for Madobe, ordering \u201cthe Somali National Police Commander (\u2026) to arrest the accused\u201d and \u201cbring him before the Benadir Regional Court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Madobe is accused of \u201chigh treason,\u201d \u201cundermining national unity,\u201d \u201cpassing sensitive information to a foreign country,\u201d and \u201cattacking the constitutional framework of Somalia.\u201d<\/p>\n
The central government had hoped to postpone Jubaland\u2019s presidential election until 2025 to coincide with its plans to introduce direct universal suffrage throughout the country.<\/p>\n
Until now, Somali leaders have been appointed through a complex system of indirect elections by clan chiefs.<\/p>\n
Pro-Madobe lawmakers tried to disrupt parliament on Wednesday, but the session continued and approved the creation of an 18-member electoral commission to organize national elections.<\/p>\n
Conflict-ridden Somalia is a federation of five semi-autonomous member states \u2013 Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West \u2013 and a central government based in the capital, Mogadishu.<\/p>\n
A sixth region, Somaliland, which has direct suffrage, declared independence in 1991 but is not recognised as such by the international community.<\/p>\n
In 2012, Ahmed Madobe, whose real name is Ahmed Mohamed, ousted the radical Islamist Shebab from their stronghold in Kismayo, the main port city and capital of Jubaland, with the help of Kenyan troops.<\/p>\n
Neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia see Jubaland \u2013 a lush and relatively prosperous region of Somalia where they have many troops \u2013 as a buffer against the al Shabaab militants, who have staged several bloody attacks in their countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A court in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday issued a warrant for the arrest of Ahmed Madobe on charges including \u201cundermining national unity\u201d. This came shortly after Madobe was re-elected president of the southern state of Jubaland in an election not recognised by the federal government. The decision marks a new rise in tensions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"APA + AFP","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,33],"tags":[3527,2049,189],"class_list":["post-14306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-ahmed-madobe","tag-mogadishu","tag-somalia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}