Hussen fired his own distant cousin for tea import manipulation

Evidence

The first to come was Osman Mohamed Adde, the minister of Industry and Commerce. Hussen had known Adde since the 1950s when Adde was inspector of prisons and Hussen had been a political prisoner in Mogadishu. In addition, Adde was a distant cousin. The claim against Adde was that he was blocking tea imports so that his client, Hussen’s first cousin (who was also involved in manipulating tea importation through the state’s Trading Agency), could exploit the artificially induced shortage. Hussen confronted the minister with the evidence, but Adde denied any wrongdoing. The prime minister fired him on the spot. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 830

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘dhul cun, dhir cun, dad cun’ progression and clan-kin corruption recalls how kinship ties complicated institutional governance generally.
• CANDY: The progression from ‘land eater’ to ‘forest eater’ to ‘people eater’ is a memorable Somali political joke worth retelling.