{"id":493334,"url":"http://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/493334/?format=json","text_counter":35,"type":"speech","speaker_name":"Hon. (Ms.) Abdalla","speaker_title":"","speaker":{"id":382,"legal_name":"Amina Ali Abdalla","slug":"amina-abdalla"},"content":"Thank you, hon. Speaker. I would like to join my colleagues in sending my condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of the late Prof. Ali Mazrui. Hon. Speaker, I thought it befitting to share a discussion that I held with Prof. Mazrui when I first met him as a graduate student at Cornell University in the Spring of 1998. With all humility, he showed so much interest in my research topic and wanted to know why I wanted to come back home before I finished my business there. Before I could explain why I wanted to come back very fast, one of my advisors quipped that the reason as to why I could be going back home fast was that I was the only graduate student who happened to have celebrated President Moi’s win of 1997 election, and that probably I was coming back to make some contributions to that Government. Little did they know that I was actually coming back to go and work in the self-declared Republic of Somaliland! Prof. Mazrui wanted to know why, as a progressive young person, I would have supported the candidature of President Moi in 1997. I joked to the professor that it was because Moi was the candidate for the minorities on the ballot paper, and that was the reason as to why I supported him. He was not amused and wanted to get my reasoning as to how I could live with the corruption and tribalism that thrived in Moi’s Government. We went on to discuss tribalism, and I said that it was only me and him, as people from The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."}