Abdullahi Mohamed Hussein
Lovingly known as “Mzee Abdi”
12 September 1949 — 26 December 2020 · aged 71
Provincial administrator and peacemaker who settled disputes over sweet tea and patience
Nairobi, Kenya Born in Wajir, Wajir County Resting at Lang'ata Muslim Cemetery, NairobiAbout Abdullahi
Abdullahi Mohamed Hussein never carried a weapon into a meeting of angry elders. He carried a flask of sweet spiced tea, a notebook and, as he liked to say, 'two ears and one mouth, used in that proportion.' In thirty-five years in the provincial administration of Kenya's north he settled boundary quarrels, water disputes and a camel-theft case that had outlasted three District Commissioners, and he did it, by every account, over tea.
He was born in 1949 outside Wajir town to a family of pastoralists who spoke Somali at home and Arabic at prayer. A schoolteacher noticed him reciting the whole geography lesson from memory and wrote to a school in Garissa; he walked the first stretch of the journey, and a lorry driver carried him the rest. After Garissa High School and the Kenya Institute of Administration at Kabete, he joined the provincial administration in 1974 as a District Officer, and was posted to Marsabit, Isiolo and Mandera before retiring in 2009 as Deputy Provincial Commissioner for North Eastern Province.
In retirement he settled in Eastleigh, where he chaired the Eastleigh Muslim Welfare Society and mediated family and business quarrels in a small back room that always smelled of cardamom. He liked anjero with ghee on Fridays, listened to the BBC Somali Service at dusk, grew hibiscus in old paint buckets, and read the Daily Nation from the back page forward. He married Halima Farah in 1975, and she survives him with their six children. He prayed at Masjid Al-Noor for twenty-four years and never once arrived after the first takbir.
Abdullahi died in Nairobi in December 2020 after a short illness, aged seventy-one. He leaves a wife, six children, eleven grandchildren and a great many people who were once at odds and are now friends because of him. Allaha u naxariisto.
“A quarrel is just two people who have not yet finished their tea.”
- Faith
- Muslim
- Place of birth
- Wajir, Wajir County
- Resting place
- Lang'ata Muslim Cemetery, Nairobi
- Passed away
- 26 December 2020, Nairobi
Janazah prayer
Sunday, 27 December 2020 at 09:00 UTC
Add to calendarLife journey
Garissa High School
Garissa High School1964 – 1967 · Garissa
Arrived by lorry, with one change of clothes and a Qur'an.
Diploma in Public Administration
Kenya Institute of Administration1971 – 1973 · Kabete, Kiambu
Trained for service in the provincial administration.
District Officer
Provincial Administration, Kenya1974 – 1988 · Marsabit and Isiolo
Mediated grazing and water disputes between rival communities.
Married Halima Farah
1975 · Garissa
A marriage of forty-five years and six children.
District Commissioner, then Deputy Provincial Commissioner
Provincial Administration, Kenya1989 – 2009 · Mandera and Garissa
Known for settling disputes in the open, over tea.
Chairman
Eastleigh Muslim Welfare Society2010 – 2020 · Nairobi
Mediated family and business disputes at no charge.
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Family & connections
Abdullahi is survived by
- Halima Farah Ali· Spouse
- Mohamed Abdullahi Hussein· Son
- Hodan Abdullahi Hussein· Daughter
- Dr. Fartun Abdullahi Hussein· Daughter
- 11 grandchildren· Grandchildren
Tributes & memories
6 people have shared a memory of Abdullahi.
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Sign in to write a tribute- MS
Elder from Wajir
We walked to school together as boys in Wajir, sharing one goatskin water bag. He promised then that he would 'make the world safer for goats and children'. He kept that promise in his own way for seventy years, and Wajir remembers him.
- HA
Niece, Toronto
Adeer Abdi always asked three questions: have you eaten, have you prayed, have you called your mother. In that order. I still hear them whenever I get overwhelmed by Toronto's winters, and they reset me every time.
- RC
Former colleague in the provincial administration
He was a Somali Muslim commissioner posted among Borana, Gabra, Samburu and Meru communities, and he treated every elder as an equal. When I lost my husband he came to the house in person and sat for an hour in silence. It was exactly right.
- AM
Former junior officer, now in Minneapolis
I was a nervous District Officer in Mandera in 1996 and Commissioner Abdullahi was my first boss. He taught me to hear the second story under every complaint. I now run a community mediation centre in Minneapolis, and every poster on the wall is in his voice.
- FH
Neighbour in Eastleigh
When my brother and my husband fell out over a shop lease, Mzee Abdi invited both to his back room. Two hours later, they left together, laughing, with a handshake. I asked what he said. He said, 'I only poured the tea.'
- YA
Imam at Masjid Al-Noor, Eastleigh
Abdullahi came early, sat in the second row and listened. In twenty-four years he never once asked for a special place. When the community had a dispute, he was the first person we called, and the last one to take any credit.
