JIGJIGA — Dr. Muuse Cadoosh, a senior official at the Somali Regional Health Bureau, has strongly criticized recent comments made by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who claimed that the city of Dire Dawa originally belonged to the Oromia region before the TPLF administration turned it into a jointly governed city between the Somali and Oromo communities.
Dr. Cadoosh dismissed the Prime Minister’s statement as a distortion of historical facts, saying that from the era of Emperor Menelik II (1905) up to the end of the Derg regime (1991), the city’s official designation was “Dire Dawa Issa & Gurgura Awraja,” and it was administered entirely by the Somali community.
“There has never been a time in history when an Oromo official governed Dire Dawa — from the rule of Menelik, to Haile Selassie, to Mengistu,” Dr. Cadoosh stated. “This is not about hating our Oromo brothers — I respect them — but I am simply speaking the truth,” he added.
He further accused the former TPLF-led EPRDF government of introducing the power-sharing arrangement that currently divides administration between the Somali and Oromo regions.
Dr. Muuse Cadoosh’s remarks make him the first sitting official from the Somali Regional State to directly respond to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s controversial claims about Dire Dawa’s administrative history.
