Abdulkadir Muhammad Aden

From Legacyview Dictionary of Biography

(Somali Cabdiqaadir Maxamed Aaden), byname Zoppo (an Italian word meaning lame) (b. November 1919, Bulo Burti, Hiran region, central Somalia - d. June 24, 2002, Rome, Italy), Somali politician. He joined the Somali Youth Club in Mogadishu in 1944 and helped the transformation of the club into a political party, the Somali Youth League (SYL), in 1947. He served on its central committee, but when it aligned with the Italians with the beginning of their trusteeship administration, he joined the Hizbiya Digil-Mirifle (HDM), the Digil-Mirifle party. After the assassination of Ustath Usman, president of the HDM, in 1954, Zoppo became its secretary-general and worked to transform it into a national party, the Hizbiya Dastur Mustaqil al-Sumal (HDMS) or Somali Independent Constitutional Party, in 1957. He was elected member of the Legislative Assembly in 1956, was reelected in 1959, and served as vice president of the National Assembly from May 1959 to July 1960, when he became minister of finance in the first government of the Somali Republic. In 1964, he was reelected for the SYL at Bur Hakaba, and became interior minister. For the 1968 election he co-founded with former prime minister Abdirizak Haji Hussein a new party, the Dabka Flame, but he was not returned. During the military regime, he retired from politics. However, in the late 1980s he joined the growing opposition to Pres. Muhammad Siad Barre and represented the Somali Democratic Movement in major peace and reconciliation conferences. Zoppo was elected vice president of the interim Somali government at the Djibouti conference of June-July 1991, and co-chairman of the National Salvation Council, the transitional national government formed at Sodere in 1997.

Source: http://www.rulers.org