Eventually, year-old Mohamud won and will now pilot the affairs of the Horn of Africa nation for the next four years. In his first coming, Mohamud served from to as head of the Federal Government of Somalia, the first government created after the end of a long period of turbulence that started in The longstanding civil society activist and educationist had only fully joined politics in when he founded the Union for Peace and Development Party.
Born in the town of Jalalaqsi, in the central region of Hiiraan, Mohamud obtained an undergraduate degree in technology from the Somali National University in the capital city of Mogadishu. Throughout the turmoil Somalia suffered in that period, Mohamud remained in the country, unlike a number of Somali leaders who sought asylum overseas. When United Nations peacekeeping forces, UNISOM, left the country in , he partnered with civil society groups to spearhead reconciliation efforts to bring the warring clan factions together.
Mogadishu residents still remember the so-called green line and the many people killed as they tried to cross it. In , Mohamud helped establish the Somali Institute of Management and Administration, which later became one of the biggest universities in Somalia. Mohamud formed the Union for Peace and Development Party in and, as its leader, went on to challenge transitional government President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. In , he was elected the eighth president of the country, running on a platform of a new federal Somalia with full diplomatic relations with the rest of the world after three decades of war and successive transitional administrations.
In September , he established a national consultative forum that brought together leaders of regional member states to forge an inclusive electoral process. The forum was also instrumental in reaching major political consensus until it was dissolved by his successor, Farmaajo, who defeated him in the election. In one instance, the UN Monitoring Group accused the administration of giving weapons to clan militias and al-Shabab. It said the Maryland-based firm conspired to divert the recovery of overseas assets belonging to the central bank of Somalia.
The government denied the findings. Yussur Abrar, who was governor of the central bank at the time, resigned. She had only been in her position for seven weeks but said she could not continue because of corruption concerns. In his acceptance speech on Sunday after being declared the winner of an election that had been delayed for about two years, he spoke in a reconciliatory tone from inside a heavily fortified tent in Mogadishu and promised to build an inclusive government.
