In the year 1955,Mariano was a member of a 4 delegation team of politicians and Sultans to London,United Kingdom. Their goal was to petition and pressure the British Government in returning lost treaty territory known as the 'Haud Reserve Area' ceded to Ethiopian Empire during the Anglo Ethiopian treaty of 1954. [12] The National United Front was a division of the Somali National League that was specially tasked for this purpose and Mariano a founding figure was nominated as vice president of the party. [13]
The N.U.F. campaigned for the return of the territories both in Somaliland and abroad. In March 1955,for instance,a delegation consisting of Michael Mariano,Abokor Haji Farah and Abdi Dahir went to Mogadisho to win the support and co-operation of the nationalist groups in Somalia. And in February and May 1955 another delegation consisting of two traditional Sultans (Sultan Abdillahi Sultan Deria,and Sultan Abdulrahman Sultan Deria),and two Western-educated moderate politicians (Michael Mariano,Abdirahman Ali Mohamed Dubeh) visited London and New York. During their tour of London,they formally met and discussed the issue with the Secretary of State for the Colonies,Alan Lennox-Boyd. They told Lennox-Boyd about the 1885 Anglo-Somali treaties. Under the agreements,Michael Mariano stated,the British Government 'undertook never to cede,sell,mortgage or otherwise give for occupation,save to the British Government,any portion of the territory inhabited by them or being under their control'. But now the Somali people 'have heard that their land was being given to Ethiopia under an Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897'. That treaty,however,was 'in conflict' with the Anglo-Somali treaties 'which took precedence in time' over the 1897 Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty[.] The British Government had 'exceeded its powers when it concluded the 1897 Treaty and ... the 1897 Treaty was not binding on the tribes.' Sultan Abdillahi also added that the 1954 agreement was a 'great shock to the Somali people' since they had not been told about the negotiations,and since the British Government had been administering the area since 1941. The delegates requested,as Sultan Abdulrahman put it,the postponement of the implementation of the agreement to 'grant the delegation time to put up their case' in Parliament and in international organizations. [14]
