I can tell from
@caanoshaah threads that it’s all a reaction to me. I’m kinda flattered. My criticisms towards Ethiopia upset y’all so much that you think I’m using them as some yardstick to measure how well Somalia is doing or to hide its ongoing problems. Actually, just my general posts about Somalia’s successes, gains, potentials, and attempts to provide context or solutions to challenges, you really despise all of it.
Despite outside interference that has led to the current political climate, which has made institution building messy and progress uneven, Somalia has still managed to build a resilient, decentralized economy, innovate in key sectors like telecom, energy, and agriculture, and maintain a relatively low crime society compared to many other regions.
What bothers some of you isn’t that I’m ignoring Somalia’s flaws, it’s that I refuse to center Somalia’s identity around dysfunction or play into the usual narratives. And that’s what makes you uncomfortable.
Anyway, I’m going to ignore most of what you said, especially since you dismissed it all as “this is all complete bullshit written by chatgpt .” Just as a bit of advice, don’t rely on ChatGPT to write things for you blindly. Use it the way most professionals do, as a supporting tool to help structure and analyze '' your own work'' that means your ideas, files, data, graphs, articles, etc. If you don’t understand or study the material yourself first, it’s not going to magically make sense of things for you. And yes, it can sometimes generate inaccurate or made up content when misused.
As for the actual topic of the thread, I'll keep it simple. I won’t even get into detailed critiques of Ethiopia. The fact that the country is now operating like a dysfunctional, near-/collapsed state says enough. Basic services, education, and healthcare systems barely function.
The study I shared some time ago already outlines what happened post-2018 in Ethiopia, feel free to actually read it.
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We don’t even have to pose a hypothetical about whether Somalia would be “better off” under Ethiopia, we have a real-world example , the Somali Region (Ogaden), which was forcibly annexed by Ethiopia.
For years, it was plagued by insurgency, government violence, and severe underdevelopment. This wasn’t due to local incapacity, but rather the Ethiopian government's deliberate efforts to suppress and marginalize the region, much like what Kenya has done to Somalis in the NFD: extract taxes and resources without providing basic services in return.
It was also similar to NFD, since people there had to cross over to Somalia to get basic services like electricity and water, which i covered in another thread and complain about lack of services despite paying taxes.
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To qoute it
''We kept paying taxes , but got no services" '' The Ethiopians occupied us like a feudal kingdom: they took and took and gave nothing back"
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I don’t know about you, but I don’t think being treated like a feudal peasant, taxed without development, and kept deliberately poor is a sign of “betterment.” If
@caanoshaah wants to volunteer to be a loyal subject of such a system, that’s your choice , but the rest of us will pass.
The truth is, only since 2018 has the Somali Region seen any sustained development or relative stability. And that’s not thanks to the Ethiopian federal government , which, as shown in the study I linked earlier, has been been going down hill and in turmoil whilst Somali region is the most stabile and peaceful.
Five years ago, on 21 October 2018, the Government of Ethiopia and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) signed the Asmara Peace Deal - an historic occasion marking the end of over 30 years of armed conflict in the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia (SRS). But a peace deal isn’t an...
www.c-r.org
The real turning point was the peace agreement with ONLF, which allowed the Somali Region more freedom to govern itself, do business, reinvest tax revenue, and move without harassment. It also allowed us to more economic freedom in general.
That autonomy , not occupation , is what finally made progress possible.
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Post-2018, the Somali Region has:
- Inaugurated its first car assembly plant in Jigjiga
- Grown to over 300 industries (small, medium, and large) created in just 6 years
- Collected 95% of its planned annual revenue (17.6 billion birr) by mid-year , indicating strong local revenue generation
- Built 576 primary schools, 79 secondary schools, and 11 boarding schools
- Increased the education budget by 40% this year alone
- Expanded 24-hour power supply to 58 urban centers, including 18 district capitals
- Increased Jigjiga’s electricity capacity from 12 MVA to 31.5 MVA
- Planted thousands of trees across public institutions as part of the Green Legacy initiative
- Committed to produce 28 million quintals of cereals this year , a 100% increase from last year
- Purchased 168 new tractors to support agricultural mechanization
- Launched major poultry and marble/granite industries in Sitti Zone, including Ethiopia’s largest marble factory
- Saw marked reduction in food prices (e.g., wheat dropped from 6,000 birr to 4,500 birr per quintal)
- Constructed 2,020 km of gravel roads and maintained 1,128 km over the last six years
- Inaugurated new asphalt roads in towns like Kebridahar
- Drastically improved infrastructure in conflict-prone areas like Nogob Zone: schools, roads, water systems, hospitals, micro-dams, etc.
- Increased clean water access from 19% to 51% for the region's 25 million residents
- Completed 42 major water supply projects, including 13 in Jigjiga and 29 in other areas
This actually shows what’s possible when Somalis are simply left to govern themselves: peace, development, and real progress. The post-2018 transformation of the Somali Region is living proof.
When the interference stops and autonomy is respected, Somalis build.