The transitional president of Somalia has landed in Djibouti, after leaving Kenya for his home country. After a lavish send-off ceremony hosted by Kenyan leader Mwai Kibaki, Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed boarded a plane on Monday for Somalia but overflew his home country. An AFP correspondent in Djibouti confirmed Yusuf's arrival there, which Somali officials in Nairobi explained as a technical mishap.
"I ain't goin' there! You can't make me go there!"
"You're the president fergawdsake! You gotta go there!" |
The officials blamed darkness and a lack of facilities at the airport in Yusuf's alleged intended destination, the town of Jowhar, and insisted the incident would not compromise the government's long-awaited return to Somalia. "The president was not ending exile in Kenya by going to another country," one official said. "This was purely a technical issue ... there are no political complications as such to his landing in Djibouti." |