File Photo/Somali Times
Djibouti dictator Ismail Omar Guelleh has officially announced his candidacy for a sixth term in office in the country’s presidential election scheduled for April 2026, after the Djiboutian parliament recently lifted age and term limits in the constitution.
Read: Djibouti people love to see without dictator Ismaïl Omar Guelleh 2025
The ruthless Djibouti dictator 77-year-old president said he had accepted an invitation from the ruling People’s Progressive Alliance (RPP) party, during a special congress held at the People’s Palace in Djibouti. He said the party had asked him to run for a sixth term as president of Djibouti.
Ismail Omar Guelleh, is well-known to Djiboutians. He has, after all, been in power since May 1999, the year he succeeded his uncle, Hassan Gouled Aptidon, for whom he was in charge of national security and intelligence gathering, also according to sources Somali spy agency NISA senior commander told Somali Times Ismail Omar Guelleh and his wife Kadra Mahamoud Haid both former worker of France’s intelligence agency DGSI.
Djiboutian citizens, except the privileged few who are close to the regime – Guelleh’s name is dictatorship and lost opportunities. Under his regime, human rights and civil liberties are routinely violated with wife and two sons in-law from Ivory Coast and Senegal.
This is not the case. A report by the International Federation of Human Rights captured this reality perfectly, ”Djibouti is a rich country but the Djiboutians are poor.”
Djibouti dictator and chief predator, Ismail Omar Guelleh, has become one of the richest presidents in all of Africa. Guelleh, our homegrown kleptocrat, decided to monopolize state resources and the economy for himself, while condemning most Djiboutians to a life of extreme poverty and hopelessness.
Djibouti is less than a country than a commercial state-city controlled by, Ismail Omar Guelleh, wife Kadra Mahamoud Haid and two sons in-law from Ivory Coast and Senegal.
The situation in Djibouti is an emergency. Words must be turned to action.
Djibouti, a former French colony, has only had two presidents since its independence in 1977 from France. In fact, Ismail Omar Guelleh, a former intelligence officer, was a handpicked successor of his uncle, Hassan Guleid Aptidon, the first president of Djibouti.