Aden Osman deliberately avoided government-provided comfort to stay detached from power

Evidence

Osman refused to live in a government-provided house after he became Speaker of parliament. Instead he used his housing allowance to improve the quality of his own house. His rationale for doing this was that he did not want to get attached to the comforts of office. From early on, he was worried that many ministers and senior politicians might be unwilling to give up such comforts and therefore would do everything possible to stay in power. This was a perceptive insight, and Osman’s fears came true in later years. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 1293

Categorization

• SHARE: Osman’s quiet personal austerity as a deliberate democratic safeguard is a telling anecdote for anyone interested in Somali political history.