March 3, 2019 – Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN)

Coming to Somalia these days with a critical eye and keen observation of prevailing socio-ecinomic issues, one will notice that a smartphone alleviates the pain of youth unemployment in Somalia. Nobody has reliable statistics on youth unemployment in Puntland/Somalia, but everybody assumes it to be as high as hitting at least a double digit.

In personal crisis situations under similar conditions in other countries, youth unemployment often leads to surge in crime, violence, substance abuse and suicide.

Instead, Puntland youth, and to a greater extent, Somalia’s youth often kill the boring passage of time by use of and playing their smartphones, taking advange of free Wifi at business hotspots. One would often see crowds of young men at teashops, all busy playing their phones, oblivious to what is happening around them.

The phenomenon even extends to the older generations, whereby the former President of Puntland, Dr. Abdiweli M. Ali (Gaas) was accused of preferring playing his smartphone in the presence of even the most reverred traditional elders instead of attending and listening to them in the context of a society which has no idea of multi-tasking, whereby the former Puntland President and current Senator in Somalia’s Upper House of Parliament, Abdirahman Faroole, upon paying him a visit at his residence in Garowe recently, I noticed that he was using IPhone 7-plus, and whereby the new President of Puntland, Said Abdullahi Deni, conscious of the bitter experience of Dr. Gaas with the addictive device, puts away his phone during meetings.

The new smartphone phenomenon in Somalia gets its promotion in the extensive use of social media by the current leaders of the Federal Government, where President Farmaajo and Prime Minister Khayre are being accused of governing Somalia through the Facebook.