* N.B God Helps Those Who Help Them Selves.
Our Father, the late Yussuf H. Adan, was a national icon who cut his image as an educator, artist and a visionary freedom fighter, truly a beacon of the Somaliland Nation. Survived by ten sons, six daughters, forty grandchildren and five great-grandchildren, his was a life crammed with fascinating achievements although this had not gone into his head. On the contrary, humility and simplicity always remained his forte.
As an educator, he was a disciplinarian and adapt organiser. At the same time, the artist in him was often pushed to the surface by his soft side that oozed out while he played with us, his children. Add this to the fact that although he had taken numerous risks in his political and professional activities, the wellbeing of the family always remained uppermost.
The man, whose devotion to his inclinations and responsibilities knew no bounds, was born in 1914 in the Hargeisa neighbourhood of Jamo-weyn. Hargeisa was known then as Herer from which he drew his alias "Yussuf-Herer.” By age 10, he completed his Quranic studies in 1924. Subsequently, he proceeded to the countryside in a bid to be steeped in nomadic culture and get good command of both the Somali language and literature – a fact that gave him the tools for turning out an accomplished poet.
In 1928, he was off to Sudan for formal education which was unavailable in British Somaliland Protectorate at the time. But it took a decade before he emerged the only one among a bunch of compatriot students in Sudan to readily throw his weight behind the late Mohamoud Ahmed Ali’s drive to extend formal education to the protectorate. Thus, he attended a teacher’s training college after graduating from high school, coming back to Hargeisa in 1939, fully prepared for his role as a future educator-cum-co-founder of a system that would prove the spring-well of a nation thirsty for formal education. And in 1940, our father kick-started his teaching career, joining Mr. Ali as the only other teacher at the just established Berbera elementary school.
A year later, however, their ambitious plan to entrench the system they strove for had a setback. Dislodging briefly Britain out of the protectorate, Italy destroyed the Berbera school, the only institution of its kind in the protectorate. With the return of the British rule, our father was transferred to the District Commissioner’s office in Hargeisa. But no sooner had the new situation materialised than the duo opened Sheikh Bashir Elementary School in Hargeisa, the first centre for formal learning planned and established by Somali educators. Civil servants at the time, both of them devoted their spare time to running the school, which they financed with their meagre salaries. The first lot of their students includes:
Dr. Ali Sh. Ibrahim, the first medically trained doctor from Somaliland the first enrolled student at the new school. The late Ambassador Mohamed Hashi Abdi, the late Abdirahman Ahmed Ali, the First President of Somaliland, the late Mohamed H. Ibrahim Egal, the Second President of Somaliland, the late Suudi H. Adan, a teacher prior to his premature death in the 1958, and father’s younger sibling.
Our father’s political life took shape in the 40s. As he was still a student in Sudan in the 1930s, he had exposure to the anti-colonial revolutionary spirit of Almahdi whose long-drawn-out struggle took the British to task in Sudan before being defeated. So, with the germ of nationalism already in his blood by the time he came back to Somaliland in late1939, his determination to establish a political movement to rid Somaliland of colonialism was strong.
In 1943 he founded the first political organisation, Somali National Society (SNS), in Somaliland. His pivotal supporters in this endeavour were: the late Yusuf Meygag Samater, the late Mohamoud Jama Urdoh, the late Mohamed Osman Fod and the late Abdulqadir Suldan Abdullahi, (who eventually replaced his elder brother, Suldan Rashiid) The SNS, however, was banned in 1945, being re-established on January 1st , 1946 in Burao before morphing into a political party called Somali National League (SNL) in 1952, which, eight years later, together with other political groups like the United Somali Party and the National United Front, enable Somaliland to wave bye to more than seven decades of colonial rule.
Thanks to his indefatigable political activism during that crucial period, the colonial government forcibly exiled our father to England in the same year as the SNL was born. Much to the chagrin of his tormentors, the move proved to be a blessing in disguise since it gave him to chance to further his education at Exeter University in the U.K.
With the advent of independence and unity between the protectorate and the former Italian Somalia, in July 1960, he opened the first Somali Embassy in the Arab World in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, as the Charger De-Affairs. During his four-year sojourn in Cairo as a senior Somali diplomat, he continued his ceaseless struggle for educating more Somalis. Hence, he managed to create thousands of scholarships for Somali students from every corner in the Horn of Africa.
Other positions he held in the post-independence era include:
· 1964- 1970 the political councillor in the Somali Embassy in Khartoum
· 1972 the founder of the first Somali National Folklore Dancers to retain the cultural values
· 1972- 1977 Director of Heritage & Culture of the Ministry of Information & National Guidance in Mogadisho, Somalia
· 1978-1980 Advisor in the Academy of Arts in Mogadisho
· 1980-1984 Regional Director of the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education in Hargeisa
· 1988-1990 an SNM Warrior.
· Finally, June 2004, after a long stay in London, our father returned to his birthplace, Hargeisa, where he peacefully passed away on February 15th, 2005.
Conclusively, Mr Y.H.Aden was a national father to all Somaliland Population, to write about Educational Parents. The task is more daunting when that parent is a national figure. Thus, I would like to wind up this piece with a very brief word to father Of Education: "dad, you were one of a kind!” next to Mr Mohamoud Ahmed Ali (First Father of Education) In Somaliland.
* N.B God Helps Those Who Help Them Selves.
By Abdi-Shotaly.
hadhwanaag 
