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In her post , Rhoda Elmi of Hargeisa draws on the agreement with Britain in May 1959 for Somaliland’s independence and falsely interprets it and history to fit her separatist narrative and that of fellow secessionists. Let us see the issues she raised and misrepresented in their true perspective: 1. The first flaw if not false premise in her presentation is the baseless claim of the presumed existence of a people or nation called “Somaliland” that are distinctive from the rest of the Somali nation. Such a notion never existed before or during colonisation, at independence, or anytime after. 2. What existed then in the territory, and to the present time, are clans - some having even more closer blood ties with other in the rest of the partitioned Somali homeland. As such, the concept of “Somaliland” didn’t exist as a national or political identity or allegiance at anytime. 3. What made possible for Britain to acquire part of the Somali homeland was the perennial internecine hostilities between the clans which it fully exploited. These tribes, except one, were only too eager to seek protection against each other from Britain which was only too happy to oblige. That puts to rest the notion of a shared identity (Somalilanders) to defend. 4. The status of the people/clans were not that of a nation but colonial “subjects “, and the area was not theirs but his/her Majesty’s “territory”. 5. There were only two time the clans united on action of common interest to them: first, in 1954, they rose up against Britain’s unilateral decision to give the Somali lands of Haud and the Reserved Areas to Ethiopia. The Second time was when all the clans agreed in May 1959 to seek immediate independence from Britain, not to become an independent country per se but solely for the purpose of uniting with Italian Somaliland. That wish was challenged through the colony’s Legislative Council which unanimously adopted a resolution and sent a delegation headed by Mohamed Ibrahim Egal to London for that purpose. 6. The response of the British was that those protected clans would have to first abrogate their respective treaties before it considers granting independence. 7. But it waved away that demand when it was assured that the demand for independence from the Legislative Council represents the will of all the clans, protected or not, and hence their termination of these treaties. 8. Having agreed on the union and joined it, the clans never contemplated, separately or collectively, to seceding from Somalia if they were to become unhappy with the union. 9. Indeed, the first act that a free Somaliland Legislative Council issued on 26 June was the union Act, pledging unity for eternity!! 10. Rhoda makes disingenuous flawed justifications to legitimise “Somaliland’s” withdrawal from the Union. What they are claiming she says is “re-recognition, implying they were previously recognised on independence, a blatantly fabricated self-serving claim. 11. As it’s, only congratulatory messages were sent by some countries as the world was aware of the territory ‘s impending union with Italian Somaliland within five days. 12. Contrary to the hackneyed false SNM claims, the secession from Somalia in May 1991 wasn’t the collective wish of the clans of northern Somalia but one armed clan forcing the secession on the rest. 13. The massacres committed by the one clan secessionists in Awdal region, and also in Hudun and Kalshaale, and their Gaza-like war crimes Lascaod, add up to belie their empty claim of a people called “Somaliland”, closer to each other than the rest of Somalia, monolithic, and united to withdraw from the union. 14. Each of the northern clans joined the union on its own free will, none having the prerogative to force another to join the union nor to withdraw from it. SNM (& Rhoda) is trying to overrule that inalienable right but the lesson from Gooja Adde has the last word.