The celebrations in Hargeisa and throughout Somali com- munities in the Horn of Africa went well as the blue flag festooned with a white star of the new republic was hoisted in the northern region of the Somali Repub- lic. Abdillahi Sultan Timaade, the leading nationalist poet from the small farming town of Gabileh, crafted an epic poem about the demise of colonial indignity, the rebirth of liberty, and the imperatives for responsible leadership and civic life

Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, loc. 482