MOGADISHU (Halbeeg News) – Somali prime minister, Mohamed Hussein Roble has today condoled with the family and the people of Garissa County following the death of their senator, Mohamed Yusuf Haji.
In a twitter post, the premier eulogised the veteran politician as an elder for all Somalis.
“May God have mercy on Senator Mohamed Yusuf Haji who was a Somali elder and a veteran politician who had a great influence and value in the Somali region and the Horn of Africa as whole,” the prime minister said in the post.
The 80- year-old Haji died on Monday morning while receiving treatment at the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi.
Haji was a long time administrator who served in various areas including the vast Rift valley between 1970 and 1998.
He was nominated to Parliament in 2002. And in 2007, he was elected to Parliament unopposed as Ijara MP.
Mr Haji was also the chairperson of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) task force.
Haji was the Minister of Defence from 2008 to 2013 during Mwai Kibaki’s administration and briefly served as the acting Minister of Internal Security and Provincial Affairs in 2012.
It was during his tenure when the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) troops were deployed to Somalia to fight Al Shabaab.
In 2015, as he served as the chairman of the Senate National Security and Foreign Relations Committee, Haji proposed that individuals from indigenous communities be recruited in security teams to help fight against cattle rustling because of their knowledge of terrains.
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