Friday, January 23, 2009
Kampa, Uganda (APA) - The former Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, is frantically in search of seeking asylum either in Uganda, Ethiopia or to a Middle East country, a goverment daily reported here on Friday.
The paper quoted the Ugandan Chief of Defence Forces, General Aronda Nyakairima who appeared before a parliamentary committee on Defense and internal affairs on Thursday.
Gen. Nyakairima however, did not tell the committee whether Uganda is willing to grant Yusuf asylum, but said the former president had said he would not become an obstacle to the dialogue that was going on in Somalia if granted asylum anywhere.
Yusuf resigned on December 29, 2008 after having failed to sack Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein as well as for the lackadaiscal attitude shown in the peace process in the country.
The speaker of the transitional parliament, Sheik Adan Madobe Mohamed, since assumed the acting presidency.
Nyakirima Aronda had been responding to concerns raised by Members of Parliament on Uganda’s presence in Somalia, the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) incursions in Congo and the joint security operation by Uganda, Sudan and DRC against rebels in Gramba national park.
Somalia should have a new president by January 29, according to Uganda’s defense minister Dr. Chrispus Kiyonga.
He insisted that Somali leaders were gathering in Djibouti to take appropriate steps to elect the president.
