By: Abdirahman Aynte Fellow, The Center for Independent Media
Ex-Marine Mohamed Abdi is slated to kick-off his bid to become a member of Kenyan parliament
Minneapolis, MN (HOL) - Ex-Marine Mohamed Abdi focused on Congressman-elect Keith Ellison’s campaign for the past several months, all the while making important national and international connections for his own bid to the Kenyan parliament.
Ellison is paying back the favor. He was a keynote speaker at a fundraising event on Saturday, where dozens of Abdi’s friends in the Marines and others from around the world pledged to support him financially and morally.
In the words of one attendee, it was a “mini United Nations gathering in Minneapolis for the sake of a man who vies to represent Mandera,” a small town in the porous border between Somalia and Kenya, in the elite-dominated Kenyan parliament.
Abdi, who moved to the U.S in 1995, resembles the United Nations in many ways. He grew up in the Somali-inhabited Northeastern region (NFD) in Kenya. He’s fluently multilingual in English, Swahili and Somali. He’s a dual U.S and Kenyan citizen, who can probably easily obtain a Somali citizenship.
Frustrated with the lack of infrastructural development and acute corruption in his native Mandera, where he visits once a year, Abdi decided “enough is enough.” He’s running against an experienced incumbent, who dazzles his opponents with cash and connections—two key ingredients to easy reelection in that part of the world. By all accounts, Abdi says he’s mindful of the nasty battle ahead.
Nothing in Abdi’s simple upbringing, which was marked with pinching poverty, foretells what was in store for him. Gaunt and tall, the 30-year old Abdi served in the Marines for eight years, setting his foot in places he never dreamed of: Japan, Australia, Bahrain and Kuwait .
“One day, I was driving in downtown Tokyo and I hoped it was Mandera,” he recalled. “But if wishes were horses, beggars could ride.”
He’s hauling his wife and two kids back to Kenya at the end of November to kick off his bid to become a member of the Kenyan parliament (MP), which’s one of the most handsomely compensated parliaments in the world, despite being a poor nation.
A bright-eyed Abdi insists he’s not motivated by that, but to fix what he calls a “chronic corruption.” Indeed, Kenya is one of the most corrupted nation on earth..."
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"Pioneering American campaign techniques in Kenya
Abdi launched a campaign website that’s likely to remain uneventful, since electricity is scarce in Mandera, let alone internet connection. But he could well be the first candidate in a Kenyan parliamentary election to pioneer the idea. What’s surely pioneering, however, is the picture on the front page of his website, which shows him with Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, a son of a Kenyan immigrant, and Democratic virtuoso believed to be running for president in 2008.
Another presidential hopeful that Abdi met with is Raila Odinga, who was here last month to stump Kenyans in Minnesota. Odinga, who hails from the same Luo tribe that Obama’s father hails from, is considered a front-runner for the top job in Kenya.
Obama and Odinga The True Story.LINK
"What we do know about Odinga is not good. A former Minister of Energy, Odinga is reported to have been set up in the oil business by the al Bakri Group and Muammar Quaddafi (“How Rich is Raila-The ODM Kenya Presidential Aspirant?” African Press 4/26/2007) Abdel Qader Bakri (or- Abdulkader al Bakri) was listed on the infamous “Golden Chain”—an internal Al-Queda list of wealthy Saudi financial sponsors seized by Bosnian police in a Islamic “charity” raid in 2001. (“Terrorist Financing Staff Monograph 9/11 Commission and “The Golden Chain”) According to his website, Odinga was educated in Communist East Germany, (Herder Institute, Leipzig & Otto von Guericke Tech. Institute, Magdeburg) (http://www.raila07.com) Odinga’s eldest son is named “Fidel” (http://www.raila07.com)
Perhaps most troubling is Odinga’s links to Islamic extremists in Kenya. According to Voice of America and the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, on 8/29/07, Odinga signed a secret agreement (exposed 11/27) with Sheikh Abdullah Abdi of the National Muslim...
