Is Oil Exploration in Somalia More of a Curse Than Blessing?
On 20 th May 2019, Somalia’s Lower House passed a petroleum bill ahead of government’s plan to issue oil exploration license by the end of this year. According to the plan, the winners of the bid will be announced on 7 th November and the official agreement will be signed on December. The agreement will go into effect on 1 st January 2020. The bill was passed after getting vote of favor from 150 parliamentarians out of the 275 Lower House members, only 4 of them abstained. The rest were not in attendance. As a concerned citizen about the fate of this nation, I would like to shed light upon some major issues regarding the offshore oil exploration in Somalia. My observation is based on both the local context specially focusing on Somalia’s complicated and dynamic conflict while also looking at other similar situations in Africa. Among the many stories that my grandfather told me as a kid, some of them were about tribal wars in many parts of Somalia. He would tell me ho...