The mayor of Mogadishu

BBC correspondent Andrew Harding sets out to paint a picture of conflict-ridden Mogadishu through the personal life story of one man: Mohamoud Ahmed Nur, the outspoken and charismatic former Mayor of Mogadishu, known by his nickname ‘Tarzan’. Tarzan lived a rough life in his childhood. He was born in the Somali region in Ethiopia but grew up in Mogadishu where he was put in an orphanage. This experience made him an angry man with a proclivity to solve disputes through fighting anyone and everyone who stood in his way. Tarzan, the former street-fighter, wanted to re-create and re-invent himself by elevating himself above all other Somali political contenders in his struggle for power. However, this was not easy, and Harding draws out a complicated picture of Tarzan’s rise. The narrative shuttles between Tarzan’s early days in Mogadishu, his middle days in the diaspora, and his later days in Mogadishu, dotted by exile life in the UK and elsewhere. Harding does his best in balancing what Tarzan and his family told him against what others told him about Tarzan and his family.

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