Somaliland’s new president, Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud, has made a wholesale change to the country’s civil servants by appointing a whole new set of personnel for every available public post. In his latest cull, all senior civil servants under consecutive governments since the late Abdirahman Tuur and Egal have lost their posts to the surprise and utter dismay of the general public. Only in dictatorship can civil servants lose their posts and change with the regime. But in democracy, they can only be hired or fired on merit - their ability or inability to undertake duties and stay in their jobs until retirement.   Civil servants are not political posts by any definition; they are public posts whose sole duties are to serve the public. Only if they embroil in politics could they face the wrath of politicians i.e. lose their posts.  Ahmed Silanyo, himself a high flying civil servant since the civilian government in the sixties, should know this fact better than anyone else. As expected, he appointed his own trusted men (many from his own immediate clan including the knife-wielding chief of Cabinet, Mr. Hirsi) for every important post apparently to have a complete grip on power and to consolidate and probably manipulate all decisions made at all levels of government institutions. Consequently, he created tight knit groups who are accountable to no one but himself.  It is the ministers, not the president, who are delegated to appoint civil servants as they work under their portfolios. Considering the way things are going under Ahmed Silanyo, office cleaners, clerics, secretaries, street sweepers, mosque imams, office boys, literally all conceivable posts will soon be nominated by the president. Call it whatever you like, but in my book this is dictatorship and autocracy interwoven together. Concentrating power on the hands of a very few individuals or groups is tantamount to an abuse of power. A man who labored on the wrong side of Somalilandpolitics and warmed the opposition bench for nearly a decade is on a vengeful mood. He has only one overriding objective: to obliterate Egal and Rayaale’s traces from Somaliland books and stamp his authority on all walks of life in Somaliland. If this is a new trend in Somaliland politics, the country many dubbed the “heaven of democracy”, among other things, is taking a wrong twist towards the worst. The man many have expected to usher in an era of good governance and hailed as the savior of Somaliland following Rayaale’s inept and corrupt government has now caved in to the extremists on his side and gone done the estimation of many observers. I cannot see how this government could be different to its predecessors, if not worst, as the culture of corruption, nepotism and favouritism is embedded in all Somaliland institutions whichever party is in power. Ahmed Silanyo seems to be stumbling on one obstacle to another, virtually losing the grip before the 100 day milestone towards his reign. All of a sudden, questions are being asked about his ability, or rather inability to govern in an equitable and fair manner. Initially, it was the constituencies of Awdal, Sool and Eastern Sanaag who were making all the talk of injustice and nepotism on the part of the new president following his lopsided government he formed shortly after assuming power. Now, even his staunchest supporters during the election campaign, Gabiley constituencies, are making all kind of noises after apparently chopping ten important civil servant posts held by their local men and women in his latest cull. Civil servants are the brain and blood vessels of the government and without their hard work and dedication, state institutions will simply collapse. The man, who has done and seen it all on his capacity as a minister as well as a senior civil servant in the previous Somali government, seem to have lost the basic understanding of this simple fact.     Mohamed F Yabarag   Myabarag@yahoo.co.uk