MOHAMED ABDI DAHIR

Garissa livestock trader and elder who bought camels and brokered peace

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un. It is with deep sorrow and submission to the will of Allah that we announce the death of Hajji MOHAMED ABDI DAHIR, livestock trader and elder of the Garissa Council of Elders, on 4th October 2024 at Garissa County Referral Hospital. Husband to Halima Hassan; father to Abdi, Fardowsa, Ahmed and others; grandfather to twenty-two. Janazah prayer was held at Garissa Jamia Mosque after Zuhr prayers, with burial at the Muslim cemetery, Garissa. Condolences are received at the family home in Garissa daily after Maghrib. Contributions via M-Pesa Paybill 400227, Account HAJJI. May Allah forgive him.

Hajji Mohamed Abdi Dahir could judge a camel's temper from three hundred metres, and a man's from the first handshake. For half a century he traded livestock between the grazing lands of Garissa and the markets of Nairobi and Mombasa, and he was one of those rare traders whose word was accepted without paper by Somali clans, Orma herders and Kikuyu butchers alike.

He was born in Balambala in 1948 into a pastoralist family. He had no formal schooling but memorised the genealogies of half the Garissa herds and learned to read from a neighbour's Qur'an. At eighteen he began driving goats to Thika by foot, and by thirty he owned a lorry and a stall at the Garissa livestock market. In 1999 he completed the Hajj, and after that no one called him anything but Hajji.

His real distinction was as a mediator. When drought pushed rival clans into disputes over wells and grazing land, the elders called on him to sit between them, and for twenty years the Garissa Council of Elders counted him among its most patient voices. He insisted that every agreement be closed with tea, dates and a shared meal.

Hajji Mohamed loved camel milk at dawn, canjeero with sugar and ghee, and the evening news in three languages. He was generous without announcement, quietly funding wells, a madrasa roof and school fees for eleven orphans. He prayed five times a day at the Garissa Jamia Mosque and never once raised his voice at a debtor.

He died at Garissa County Referral Hospital on 4 October 2024 after a brief illness, and was buried the same day according to the Muslim tradition.

He leaves his wife Halima, six children and twenty-two grandchildren.

“Close every agreement with tea and a shared plate.”