Michael Mariano

After Egal became the 3rd Prime Minister of Somalia in 1967 he nominated Mariano to the Minister of Planning. He held this post until the 1969 coup and was imprisoned alongside the rest of the government by the new President Siad Barre. Mariano was released with the rest of the cabinet minus Egal in 1974 and he would go on to become Ambassador to Zambia. President Barre requested his aid in writing documents justifying Somalia's territorial claims in the Ogaden War and Mariano's past expertise with the Somali Youth League was greatly beneficial. Following the war Mariano would return to life as a businessman but this time starting operations in Mogadishu. Mariano and his family converted to Islam which was jubilantly received nationwide from Mogadishu to Hargeisa. Suffering from blood cancer he retired from public service in 1986 before finally dying in 1987, Michael received a state funeral in Mogadishu.

The NFD (Northern Frontier District of Kenya) is an exclusive Somali inhabited territory within Kenya now encompassing Wajir County, Garissa County and Mandera County. From 1960 to 1967 the Somali Republic pushed and supported Somali efforts to unify ethnic Somali territory with Somalia proper. Mariano himself held a radio program on Radio Mogadishu called 'Needs of the Somali People' and in 1962 gave advice regarding the situation of the NFD. He was one of the leading figures in the intellectual war against Kenya while Shifta fighters fought the Kenyan military. This is part of his broadcast statement on October 26, 1962.

Mariano was a strong campaigner for independence and he was a member of the British Somaliland Protectorate advisory committee which worked extensively to prepare Somaliland for independence from the United Kingdom. Alongside other active members of the protectorate such as Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal and Sultan Abdillahi Deria they oversaw independence on June 26, 1960. Somaliland would unify with Italian Somaliland on July 1, 1960, to form the Somali Republic. Mariano won a seat in Erigavo part of Burao District and served as MP in the Somali Parliament.

In the year 1955, Mariano was a member of a 4 delegation team of politicians and Sultans to London, United Kingdom. Their goal was to petition and pressure the British Government in returning lost treaty territory known as the 'Haud Reserve Area' ceded to Ethiopian Empire during the Anglo Ethiopian treaty of 1954. The National United Front was a division of the Somali National League that was specially tasked for this purpose and Mariano a founding figure was nominated as vice president of the party.

In Imperial Policies and Nationalism in The Decolonization of Somaliland, 1954-1960, Historian Jama Mohamed writes:

Mariano would emerge on the big stage after his successful business enterprise in Dire Dawa. Meeting Somali Youth League leaders, his expertise was sought out and Michael would join the party in 1947 and come to draft many of the key documents the SYL used to communicate with the British Somaliland and Trust Territory of Somaliland authorities. His advocacy and position angered Ethiopian authorities who would eventually arrest Michael and his family. After feigning a divorce, Ethiopian authorities let him free but he was not allowed to return to the city. In touch with many other anti colonial figure such as the renowned Sheikh Bashir (who once came to Mariano's home and demanded to know why he was assisting Somalis with their English-language learning in order to prepare for the yearly civil service exam), Mariano's aptitude and great speaking ability brought him centre stage in the Haud dispute.

Michael Mariano (Somali: Maykal Maryaano) (1914-1987) was a Somali politician and businessman best remembered for leading a delegation to UN Headquarters in New York City and advocating for the return of the Somali inhabited Haud reserved area to Somali administration from the Ethiopian Empire. A notable member of the Somali Youth League, Mariano was fluent in Somali, Arabic and English.

Michael was born in Berbera, British Somaliland in 1914 into the Uduruxmiin sub-division of the Habr Je'lo Isaaq clan. He soon lost his father at an early age. His mother moved to Aden and Mariano was raised as by a Catholic mission in Aden Colony. He would go onto join the civil service in British Somaliland and form a men's political club in Burao by 1936.

During the same year, Mariano led a 2nd delegation this time United Nations in New York City. The issue was that the British government had clearly violated the treaties it signed with Somali clans when it unjustly handed over their territory to Ethiopia in the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897