Somalia is a unique African country in many respects but also shares many things with others. First, It was born out of the will of its people through the unification of independent Ex-British Somaliland and independent Ex-Italian administered UN Trust territory of Somalia unlike all other African countries, which have maintained the borders inherited from Europe’s colonialist countries.

It is a largely homogeneous nation whose population are mostly of the same ethnic background, speak the same language and enjoy the same faith and culture. It is also the only country in Africa, which has not ratified the principle of respecting the borders inherited from the European colonial countries as was adopted by the Organization of African Unity, currently the African Union, in 1964. Despite the aforesaid, it is still a member of the African Union.

The rejection of the borders inherited is based on the fact that these borders left Somali territories and people in the neighboring countries of Ethiopia (the Somali State of Ethiopia), Kenya (the NFD) and at that time (1964) France still ruled French Somaliland (currently Djibouti).

Somalia is also unique for it has the longest coast in Africa representing about 12.8% of Africa’s total coastline and enjoys a large maritime space of some 832,000 sq. km., bigger indeed, than its land territory of 638,000 sq. km. It has a population of thirty-two million although some fake reports repeat a population of some twenty million or less for the country.

The country is geostrategically located at the mouth of the Red Sea and is open to the Indian Ocean. It is reported to own an immense mineral base including uranium (a third of known world reserves), some 110 billion barrels of oil and gas reserves and other minerals, a large agricultural arable land and an immense livestock population. It, indeed, feeds many countries of the Arabian Gulf with their meat requirements.

And unknown to many other countries, Somalia is........

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