There is a dangerous myth circulating in Puntland today: that the proliferation of militias loyal to Mogadishu inside Puntland is an external conspiracy alone. That is only half the truth. The other half—more uncomfortable, more damning—is that this infiltration has been enabled by omission, neglect, and deliberate non-action by President Said Abdullahi Deni’s administration.
Mogadishu did not force its way into Puntland with tanks. It walked in through doors left wide open.
Parallel Militias Are Not an Accident
The existence of parallel armed groups in Galkayo, Garowe, and Bosaso is not a coincidence, nor is it a sudden phenomenon. These militias did not emerge overnight. They were allowed to grow, allowed to organize, and allowed to operate openly—sometimes brazenly—without consequence.
This is not merely a security lapse. It is a collapse of state authority.
A functioning administration would have:
Investigated funding streams
Disarmed unauthorized armed groups
Prosecuted those coordinating with external command centers
Named and shamed political fronts acting as militia cover
None of that happened.
The Fiction of “Opposition Politicians”
Equally dangerous is the normalization of anti-Puntland actors disguising themselves as “opposition politicians.” Opposition in a democracy challenges policies. It does not:
Coordinate armed groups
Undermine regional security
Take instructions from an external federal center hostile to Puntland autonomy
When politicians double as political commissars for Mogadishu’s security agenda, the issue is no longer pluralism—it is subversion.
Yet President Deni’s administration chose silence.
No Arrests. No Summons. No Justice.
This is the most damning indictment.
Not a single serious actor has been:
Summoned by the Attorney General
Interrogated by security services
Prosecuted for destabilization
Held accountable for past incidents in Garowe or Bosaso
The people remember.
They remember the violence.
They remember the armed intimidation.
They remember the paralysis of the state.
And they remember that no one answered for it.
A state that refuses to enforce the law teaches its enemies one lesson: repeat the crime, nothing will happen.
Déjà Vu as a Governance Model
What we are witnessing today is a replay of past destabilization cycles—only this time with clearer coordination and more confidence.
Why wouldn’t Mogadishu repeat the same playbook?
It worked before.
There was no cost.
Puntland’s leadership signaled weakness through inaction.
When impunity becomes policy, subversion becomes strategy.
Deni’s Strategic Blind Spot—or Political Calculation?
President Deni cannot continue to blame Mogadishu while refusing to confront its local enablers. Leadership is not about speeches, foreign travel, or optics. It is about enforcing sovereignty at home.
By failing to:
Assert monopoly over force
Confront internal collaborators
Activate prosecutorial institutions
…the administration has effectively outsourced Puntland’s internal security to Mogadishu’s whims.
This is not federalism.
This is managed destabilization.
The Consequences Ahead
Let us be clear:
If these parallel militias are not dismantled now, Puntland risks:
Fragmentation of its security architecture
Loss of public trust in state institutions
Becoming an open battlefield for Mogadishu’s political wars
Turning Garowe, Bosaso, and Galkayo into contested cities
History is unforgiving to leaders who confuse patience with paralysis.
Final Word: Accountability or Collapse
President Said Abdullahi Deni must answer a simple question:
How can a government claim to defend Puntland while allowing armed proxies of another power to operate freely within its territory?
Until there is:
Arrests
Prosecutions
Public accountability
A clear security doctrine
…the repetition of destabilization is not surprising—it is inevitable.
Silence is not neutrality.
Inaction is not wisdom.
And impunity is not stability.
Puntland is being destabilized not only by Mogadishu—but by the failure of its own leadership to act.

——–
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Hassan Mohamed (Binge) contributed to this editorial

Somalia today is not short of “forums,” “councils,” or “initiatives.” It is short of honesty.
The uneasy tango between President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the so-called Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaalia exposes, once again, a political culture built on deception, clannish calculations, and naked personal ambition—thinly disguised as national salvation.

Let us strip away the theatrics.
Hassan Sheikh’s Reluctant Engagement: A PR Exercise, Not a Peace Offering
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud did not engage Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaalia out of conviction or national urgency. He did so reluctantly, under pressure, and with one eye firmly fixed on donors and international partners.
This was not statesmanship; it was damage control.
The meeting—forced by ultimatum rather than goodwill—reeks of bad faith. It fits a familiar pattern: engage opponents just enough to neutralize pressure, then return to unilateralism once the cameras are gone. Hassan Sheikh’s Somalia is one where dialogue is weaponized, not respected; where consultation is cosmetic, not consequential.
For Villa Somalia, Golaha Mustaqbalka is not a partner—it is a nuisance to be managed, diluted, and eventually discarded.

Golaha Samatabixiinta: Soft Gloves for a Familiar Regime
If Hassan Sheikh is acting in bad faith, Golaha Samatabixiinta Soomaaliya is acting in a bad conscience.
Their approach to the president has been timid, evasive, and disturbingly indulgent. Despite presiding over constitutional violations, mandate overreach, and the erosion of federal consensus, Hassan Sheikh is treated with kid gloves.
Why?
Because this is not merely a political grouping—it is also a Hawiye comfort zone. Hard questions are avoided. Red lines are blurred. Accountability is postponed indefinitely. The language is conciliatory where it should be confrontational; diplomatic where it should be surgical.
A “salvation council” that cannot confront power—especially power from its own social base—is not a salvation council at all. It is an echo chamber.

Ahmed Mohamed Islam: Recognition Politics Disguised as National Struggle
Ahmed Mohamed Islam’s role inside Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaalia is neither ideological nor principled. It is transactional.
His objective is clear: personal recognition from Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. The council is merely a bargaining chip—a ladder, not a platform. National rhetoric is deployed selectively, not to reform Somalia, but to secure political validation from Villa Somalia.
This is politics reduced to personal advancement: collective struggle hijacked for individual legitimacy.

Said Abdullahi Deni: The Wild Card with a Presidential Eye
Then there is Said Abdullahi Deni—the only actor in this drama who is not pretending.
Deni is not negotiating for relevance. He is positioning for power.
He sees Villa Somalia not as a partner to be persuaded, but as a fortress to be taken. His ambition is clear, his objective unmistakable: unseat Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. And unlike others in the council, Deni understands that Somali politics is not won by communiqués, but by alliances, endurance, and—critically—resources.
If Deni secures substantial external financial backing, this contest will not end in compromise. It will end in confrontation. Bitter. Prolonged. Unforgiving.
In this sense, Deni is the only honest variable in an otherwise dishonest equation.

The Tragic Bottom Line
What we are witnessing is not a national rescue mission—it is a collision of different agendas, conflicting intentions, and opposing endgames, all wrapped in the language of patriotism.
Hassan Sheikh seeks survival and donor appeasement.
Golaha Samatabixiinta seeks comfort without confrontation.
Ahmed Mohamed Islam seeks recognition, not reform.
Said Abdullahi Deni seeks Villa Somalia itself.
And Somalia? Somalia is once again reduced to a stage where elites rehearse their ambitions while the state continues to fracture.
Until Somali political actors stop mistaking personal projects for national causes, every “Golaha,” every “initiative,” and every “dialogue” will remain exactly what this one is: a performance without salvation.

——-
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A WAPMEN satirical essay

Somali politics has perfected a rare art: the ability for all principal actors to win their personal battles while the country itself collapses in the background. The latest “interesting take” making the rounds claims that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has politically defeated Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni, while Deni, in turn, has defeated the will and aspirations of Puntland society. The final scoreline? Somali federalism lying on a hospital bed, connected to tubes, while politicians argue over who owns the oxygen tank.
At first glance, the argument sounds clever—almost elegant in its symmetry. Hassan beats Deni. Deni beats his people. Federalism loses. Curtain closed. Applause. But let us open the curtain again, because the tragedy is not that one man defeated another; it is that both men have been playing different games on the same broken field.

Hassan Sheikh: The Grandmaster of Checkmates on Paper
From Mogadishu, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud appears to have outmaneuvered Puntland politically. He has centralized authority, dictated the tempo of national debate, and reduced federal member states to guests who must RSVP to Villa Somalia. Jubaland is scolded, Puntland is isolated, SSC-Khaatumo is instrumentalized, and federalism is rebranded as a “consultative suggestion” rather than a binding constitutional arrangement.

If political victory is measured by dominating the narrative, then yes—Hassan Sheikh is winning. But this is the kind of victory achieved by a man who burns down the house to prove he owns the keys. His triumph is not over Deni alone; it is over the very idea that Somalia is a negotiated union rather than a Mogadishu-issued decree.
This is not statesmanship. It is an administrative conquest dressed up as constitutional reform.

Deni: The President Who Defeated His Own Constituency
President Said Abdullahi Deni, meanwhile, has achieved something even more extraordinary. Without tanks, without Mogadishu’s budget, without international backing, he has managed to politically exhaust Puntland society itself. He promised democratization and delivered postponement. He promised decentralization and delivered presidential solitude. He promised leadership and delivered long absences.
If Hassan Sheikh defeated Deni politically, Deni responded by turning inward and defeating the very constituency that legitimizes him. The public’s aspirations—for security, participation, institutional governance, and a coherent Puntland voice in Somali affairs—have been quietly shelved in favor of survival politics and personal calculus.
This is not resistance. It is retreat disguised as dignity.

Federalism: The Real Casualty, Without a Funeral
Here is where the assessment becomes painfully accurate: the cumulative result is the near collapse of Somali federalism. Federalism cannot survive if Mogadishu treats states as disobedient provinces and state leaders treat their societies as inconvenient audiences. Federalism is not sustained by communiqués or summits; it survives on mutual restraint, constitutional respect, and leaders who fear their people more than they fear each other.
Today, Hassan Sheikh rules as if federalism is a temporary inconvenience on the road to centralization. Deni governs as if Puntland society is a passive spectator, not a stakeholder. Between them, federalism is neither defended nor reimagined—it is simply used.

Do I Agree With the Assessment?
Yes—but with a sharper conclusion.
Hassan Sheikh did not defeat Deni because he is politically superior; he defeated him because the federal system has no enforcement mechanism against a determined centralizer.
Deni did not defeat Puntland society because he is powerful; he defeated it because prolonged disappointment eventually looked like consent.
And federalism did not collapse because of one man or one presidency—it collapsed because Somalia’s political class treats governance as a zero-sum duel rather than a shared burden.

Final Satirical Note
Somalia today resembles a boxing ring where:
One fighter wins by refusing to follow the rules,
The other wins by refusing to fight,
And the referee—called the Constitution—was knocked out in the first round.
In the end, both presidents may claim victory. History, however, will record something far less flattering: that when Somalia needed leadership, it got rivalries; when it needed federalism, it got feudalism; and when it needed statesmen, it got men busy defeating everyone except the problems.

———

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The Federal Government of Somalia (FGS), under President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has once again perfected its favorite political art form: performative dialogue followed by deliberate sabotage. The latest casualty is a potential sit-down with the Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaalia—not by accident, not by misunderstanding, but by design.
At the inauguration of the SSC-KHAATUMO Administration in Laascaanod, Prime Minister Hamse Abdi Barre stood on a national platform and publicly insulted and denied the legitimacy of Jubaland President Ahmed Mohamed Islam (Madobe)—a sitting federal member state leader. Then, in a stunning display of political schizophrenia, the same federal leadership invited the very actors it had just humiliated back to Mogadishu the next day to “prepare for a technical meeting before a summit.”
This is not statesmanship.

This is political mockery.
Whatever instructions Hamse Abdi Barre received from Villa Somalia, he executed them with brutal clarity: signal contempt first, extend an invitation later, and blame the other side for refusing. The result was predictable. The Golaha Mustaqbalka rejected the proposal—not because it fears dialogue, but because it recognizes bad-faith governance when it sees it.
At first glance, some may ask: Was the rejection too hasty? Was something wrong with the Golaha Mustaqbalka’s response? But a deeper look reveals the uncomfortable truth: FGS is not interested in resolving Somalia’s outstanding political crises. It is interested in controlling the narrative, neutralizing dissent, and buying time.

Dialogue as Theater, Not Solution
For Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s administration, dialogue has become a stage prop, not a governing tool. Invitations are issued without respect. Summits are announced without groundwork. “Technical meetings” are proposed without political seriousness. The aim is not reconciliation—it is optics, donor appeasement, and domestic confusion.
Insulting Jubaland one day and inviting it the next is not diplomacy.
It is gaslighting the federal system.
And let us be clear: this is part of a broader pattern. Puntland is sidelined. Jubaland is delegitimized. SSC-KHAATUMO is instrumentalized. Somaliland is mishandled. The constitution is manipulated. Mandates are stretched. Elections are weaponized. Nothing is resolved—everything is postponed.

The Real Test for Golaha Mustaqbalka
The rejection of the FGS proposal should not be the end of the road—it should be the beginning of clarity.
The Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaalia was not formed to orbit Villa Somalia or to beg for seats at a poisoned table. It was formed to provide alternative leadership to a regime that has exhausted its credibility and imagination. If it merely reacts to Mogadishu’s theatrics, it risks becoming another footnote in Somalia’s long history of squandered initiatives.
The task ahead is bigger—and harder.
Golaha Mustaqbalka must now move decisively:
Articulate a clear national roadmap beyond the Mogadishu regime.
Address the federal crisis honestly, not selectively.
Propose a credible framework for constitutional settlement, security cooperation, and electoral legitimacy.
Speak to the Somali people directly—not through Villa Somalia’s filters.
Somalia does not suffer from a lack of meetings.
It suffers from a lack of seriousness.

Conclusion: Somalia Needs Leadership, Not Stagecraft
The FGS sabotage of engagement with Golaha Mustaqbalka is not a misstep—it is a revelation. It confirms that Villa Somalia is more comfortable managing crises than solving them, more skilled at dividing than uniting, and more invested in survival than in statecraft.
History will not be kind to leaders who mistook delay for strategy and arrogance for authority.
And history will not forgive alternative platforms that failed to rise when the moment demanded courage.
Somalia is burning time it no longer has.
The question now is simple: Who is ready to lead—and who is content to perform?

——
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Case Study 1: Food Aid vs. Agricultural Systems (South-Central Somalia)

For more than three decades, Somalia has received large volumes of emergency food assistance coordinated with Western donors and multilateral agencies, often under the policy umbrellas of the European Union, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.
Yet sustained investment in irrigation along the Shabelle and Juba rivers, seed banks, agricultural extension services, and rural roads has remained minimal.

Outcome:
Chronic food insecurity persists despite fertile land.
Seasonal famine cycles repeat.
Farmers remain dependent on aid distributions instead of markets.

Policy Lesson:
Humanitarian food aid has substituted for — not complemented — agricultural system-building.

Case Study 2: Fisheries Neglect in a Maritime Nation
Somalia possesses one of the longest coastlines in Africa, yet donor assistance has failed to establish:
Modern fishing ports
Cold storage facilities
Fish processing plants
Export certification systems
While “capacity-building workshops” for fisheries ministries are common, hard infrastructure is absent.

Outcome:
Artisanal fishers remain trapped in subsistence livelihoods.
Illegal foreign fishing continues largely unchecked.
Coastal youth migrate or turn to illicit economies.

Policy Lesson:
Western aid avoids capital-intensive investments that would produce independent coastal economies.

Case Study 3: Livestock — Somalia’s Economic Backbone Ignored
Livestock contributes a significant share of Somalia’s GDP and exports, yet donor programming has largely bypassed:
Veterinary laboratories
Disease surveillance systems
Feed production and rangeland management
Export logistics beyond emergency disease bans
Instead, assistance often arrives after crises rather than preventing them.

Outcome:
Recurring livestock bans devastate pastoral incomes.
Pastoral resilience declines despite generations of expertise.
Emergency relief replaces preventive investment.

Policy Lesson:
Aid treats livestock as a humanitarian concern, not a strategic economic sector.

Case Study 4: Infrastructure by Workshop, Not by Design
Somalia’s infrastructure gaps — roads, ports, energy, water systems — are routinely acknowledged in donor reports, yet funding is:
Fragmented
Short-term
Projectized
Heavily conditioned
Large-scale public works are deferred in favor of studies, pilots, and “stakeholder consultations.”

Outcome:
Markets remain disconnected.
Public services cannot scale.
State legitimacy erodes at the community level.

Policy Lesson:
Avoidance of infrastructure perpetuates fragility while preserving donor risk aversion.

Case Study 5: Education and Health — Permanent Pilots
Western assistance to education and health in Somalia often prioritizes:
NGOs and parallel systems
Short-term service delivery
Donor-branded facilities
National universities, teaching hospitals, and professional accreditation systems remain underdeveloped.

Outcome:
Brain drain accelerates.
Health and education remain externally dependent.
Citizens become service recipients, not rights-holders.

Policy Lesson:
Systems are not built because systems reduce long-term donor relevance.

Cross-Cutting Finding
In Somalia, Western assistance has consistently:
Managed poverty rather than reduced it
Stabilized elites rather than empowered communities
Funded optics rather than outcomes
This pattern is not accidental. A self-reliant Somalia — producing food, exporting fish and livestock, educating its youth, and delivering health services — would fundamentally end the aid theatre.
Somalia-Focused Policy Recommendation Addendum
Replace food aid with riverine irrigation and farmer cooperatives within fixed exit timelines.

Fund fisheries infrastructure, not seminars.
Treat livestock as a strategic export sector, not an emergency liability.
Commit to national infrastructure corridors, not scattered projects.
Invest in universities and teaching hospitals under Somali public ownership.

Puntland State is not under siege because of destiny, geography, or foreign conspiracies alone. It is under siege because of abandonment—the quiet, systematic abandonment of governance, reform, cohesion, and duty by those entrusted to protect and advance it.

Let us speak plainly.
The Puntland State administration abandoned democratisation—the long-promised one person, one vote project—without explanation, roadmap, or accountability. What was once presented as a historic transition from clan arithmetic to citizen sovereignty was casually shelved, leaving behind political cynicism and a vacuum filled by opportunists. Democracy was not defeated by insecurity; it was defeated by lack of political will.
At the same time, the administration failed to build internal cohesion and regional security, the very foundations upon which any democratic experiment must stand. The consequences are now visible and costly. SSC-Khaatumo was not merely “let go”; it was allowed to mutate into a political collection centre for anti-Puntland elements, a staging ground where Mogadishu’s long game against Puntland found fertile ground. This did not happen overnight, nor was it inevitable. It happened because Puntland chose silence over strategy.

While Mogadishu played chess—patient, layered, and ruthless—Puntland responded with checkers: reactive, predictable, and unserious.
Villa Somalia was given a free hand to destabilise Puntland, politically and in security, without counter-measures, without diplomatic escalation, without strategic containment. No red lines were drawn. No costs were imposed. No coherent Puntland doctrine toward Mogadishu exists today—only ad-hoc reactions and press statements after the damage is done.

Internally, the rot deepened.
Power has been hoarded at the presidency, not delegated. Puntland today is governed like a one-office state. There is no meaningful decentralisation of administrative or executive authority. Ministries exist in name, not in function. Most have no capacity, no operating budgets, no policy units, no research desks, no strategic planning wings. They are shells—waiting rooms for political loyalty, not engines of governance.

A government without budgets is not a government; it is a façade.
A government without research and strategic thinking cannot navigate a region as volatile as the Horn of Africa. Yet Puntland has no standing strategic council, no geopolitical risk unit, no security foresight mechanism. Decisions are improvised, not designed. Crises are managed through travel and absence, not presence and command.
And then come the theatrics.

From time to time, the President summons “sectors of society” to the palace—intellectuals, elders, youth, former officials. The cameras roll. Statements are issued. Photos are taken. And then—nothing. No white papers. No policy shifts. No institutional follow-through. Governance by optics has become the defining feature of the Puntland State Presidency.
Consultations without consequences are not leadership; they are political theatre.
Most troubling of all is absentism at the height of crisis. The rapidly shifting geopolitics of the Horn of Africa—Red Sea militarisation, proxy alignments, Somaliland gambits, Mogadishu’s centralisation drive—do not excuse Puntland leaders from their obligations. On the contrary, they demand presence. A state facing internal fragmentation and external pressure cannot be governed from airport lounges and foreign hotels.
Security crises are not managed remotely. States are not defended by delegation to fate.

Puntland was founded in 1998 as a self-correcting project—a polity built on consensus, decentralisation, and collective leadership. That spirit has been betrayed. What we see today is stagnation masked as stability, silence mistaken for prudence, and optics replacing substance.
History is unforgiving to leaders who confuse endurance with achievement.
Puntland still has the human capital, the legitimacy, and the strategic location to reclaim its role as a stabilising anchor in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. But that requires a rupture with the current mode of governance:
real decentralisation, real security reform, real strategy toward Mogadishu, real democratic timelines, and above all—leaders present at the seat of duty.
The house is burning. Photo-ops will not put out the fire.

——-
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Let us speak plainly to the people of Puntland: security comes before politics, and survival comes before symbolism. Today, Puntland is not in a position to host grand political conferences, opposition summits, or anti–Villa Somalia theatrics—not while rebellious, infiltrated, and politically weaponized forces remain active inside its urban centers.
The uncomfortable truth is this: no serious political gathering can take place in Garowe—including any meeting of Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaalia—unless Puntland first neutralizes internal security threats festering within its own cities. Conferences do not create power. Control does.

Laascaanod: The Mask Slips
The arrival of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Laascaanod yesterday has brutally exposed Puntland’s vulnerability. Hundreds of Puntland rebellious elements were seen operating as part of Mohamud’s security escort, donning the uniform and cover of the Somali National Army (SNA). This is not symbolism; it is penetration. When armed elements hostile to Puntland can seamlessly play the role of a federal president’s protection detail, the message is unmistakable: the lines between federal forces and factional militias have collapsed—and Puntland is paying the price.
This was a live demonstration of how Puntland’s internal fissures are being instrumentalized by Villa Somalia. The spectacle in Laascaanod was not merely a visit; it was a security rehearsal, a warning shot that Puntland’s house is exposed while Mogadishu tightens its game.

The Urban Threat No One Wants to Name
Garowe and other Puntland towns are increasingly porous. Political agents, clan militias masquerading as activists, sleeper cells, and foreign-aligned spoilers operate freely—protected by silence, denial, and political cowardice. This is not conjecture; it is visible reality.
In such an environment, hosting a high-profile political conference would be reckless—an open invitation to sabotage, humiliation, or worse. Puntland cannot posture as a fortress of opposition while its internal defenses are compromised.

A Leadership Vacuum at the Worst Possible Time
While Puntland’s security situation deteriorates, President Said Abdullahi Deni spends months abroad—detached, distant, and disconnected from the daily anxieties of his people. Leadership by passport stamp is not leadership. A state under pressure requires a resident commander-in-chief, not a frequent flyer.
Meanwhile, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is playing long-game chess—co-opting rivals, fragmenting opponents, manipulating timelines, and exploiting every vacuum left by distracted adversaries. Puntland, by contrast, is playing checkers: reactive, predictable, and fatally slow.

Politics Without Security Is Suicide
Those dreaming of turning Garowe into an anti–Villa Somalia stage must wake up. Political defiance without internal security is performative nonsense. Puntland risks becoming a cautionary tale—loud in rhetoric, hollow in control.
History is unforgiving to regions that confuse talk for power.

A Warning to the People of Puntland
This is not an attack on opposition politics. It is a warning against self-delusion.
Secure the cities first. Here there is no need for panic. It needs adequate security preparations to address the threats:
Neutralize hostile elements—regardless of clan or cover.
Restore discipline within the security services.
Demand presence, not absentee leadership.
Only then can Puntland speak with authority—locally, nationally, and internationally.
Until that happens, any talk of hosting opposition conferences in Garowe is not bravery.
It is recklessness dressed as resistance.

——-
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The arrival of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Laascaanod today is not an act of reconciliation. It is a political signal flare—aimed simultaneously at Somaliland’s secessionist leadership and at Said Abdullahi Deni of Puntland State. But rather than calming a volatile landscape, this visit pours fuel on an already smoldering fire.
Somalia today does not suffer from a shortage of symbolism; it suffers from a deficit of wisdom. In choosing provocation over dialogue, theatrics over trust-building, Villa Somalia once again demonstrates its inability—or unwillingness—to govern a fragile federation with restraint and strategic foresight.

Provoking Puntland Is Not Governing Somalia
Puntland is not a peripheral actor to be toyed with. It is a foundational pillar of Somalia’s federal architecture, a state that has borne the brunt of stabilizing the northeast while Mogadishu oscillated between paralysis and overreach. To treat Puntland as an adversary—especially in Laascaanod—is to misunderstand both history and political reality.
The Federal President had a choice: extend an olive branch to Puntland, acknowledge its central role in the liberation and protection of SSC territories, and use Laascaanod as a venue for reconciliation. Instead, he chose a confrontational posture, signaling exclusion rather than inclusion. That choice deepens mistrust, widens fractures, and accelerates Somalia’s drift toward ungovernability.

SSC-Khaatumo’s Strategic Amnesia
Equally troubling is the conduct of SSC-Khaatumo leadership. Their current trajectory reflects a dangerous case of strategic amnesia. SSC did not emerge in a vacuum. Its survival—political, military, and humanitarian—was inseparable from Puntland’s support, sacrifice, and steadfastness when others looked away or colluded with aggression.
To now alienate Puntland, or worse, to assemble in Laascaanod a coalition of openly anti-Puntland elements, is not only ungrateful—it is reckless. This is not statesmanship; it is short-term opportunism that risks long-term isolation. SSC-Khaatumo cannot secure its future by burning bridges to its most reliable ally.

Laascaanod Must Be a Bridge, Not a Battlefield
Collecting anti-Puntland actors in Laascaanod under the guise of federal outreach is not neutrality. It is provocation. In a region still healing from conflict, such moves can reasonably be interpreted as hostile political action. Laascaanod should be a bridge between Somali stakeholders, not a stage for zero-sum power games.
If Somalia’s leadership continues to weaponize symbolism while ignoring consensus, the outcome is predictable: further destabilization, hardened positions, and the erosion of federal legitimacy. Unity is not declared by presidential visits; it is earned through inclusive politics, respect for federal partners, and an honest reckoning with past alliances.

A Final Warning
Somalia is already dangerously fragmented. To govern it by provocation is to hasten its unraveling. The Federal President must decide whether he wants to be remembered as a unifier who repaired a broken federation or as a spectator who presided over its further disintegration. SSC-Khaatumo leaders, too, must choose between fleeting political applause and durable strategic partnerships.
History will not be kind to those who mistook theatrics for leadership.

——-

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The fantasy of a recognized Somaliland is finally colliding with the hard wall of geography, demography, and power politics. Strip away the slogans and flags, and what remains is an increasingly reduced, brittle enclave—politically narrowed, territorially fragmented, and socially contested. Recognition, even if theatrically announced by Israel, does not manufacture viability. It exposes fault lines.

Moreover, the recognition has been met with near-universal diplomatic condemnation. Key international bodies—including the African Union, Arab League, and European Union—alongside major powers like the United States and United Kingdom, have all explicitly rejected the move and reaffirmed support for Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity

The Shrinking Core
What is marketed as “Somaliland” today is no longer the broad northern coalition once claimed in 1991. Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn are outside effective control. Awdal is restive. The project has collapsed inward into a single-clan core, while borderlands reject rule by decree from Hargeisa. This is not statehood; it is contraction.

Recognition as Militarization
To keep a reduced entity alive, recognition would have to be backed by force. That is the unspoken premise. A paper recognition without security is meaningless; a security guarantee without legitimacy is combustible. Any external patron—Israel included—would be compelled not merely to defend but to expand control to create “strategic depth.” Translation: militarization of contested territories, especially Dhulbahante lands. That is a recipe for war, not state-building.

The Inevitable Blowback
Such a move would ignite conflicts across the north and trigger a counter-alignment. The irony is sharp: external arming intended to “save” Somaliland would reunify its opponents. Puntland—which has kept a wary distance from Mogadishu—would be pushed back into strategic coordination with the center, alongside the Federal Government of Somalia. Not out of romance, but necessity. Security pressure forges alliances faster than speeches.

How the Project Ends
This is how the Somaliland experiment ends—not with a UN seat, but with overreach. Recognition that requires tanks, drones, and proxy militias to redraw clan borders is not recognition; it is annexation by violence. The backlash would harden resistance, internationalize local grievances, and collapse the remaining political space Hargeisa still occupies.

The Verdict
A “recognized Somaliland” that exists only by arming itself into other people’s territories is unviable by design. The attempt would likely finish Somaliland as we know it—by forcing a northern consolidation against it and by stripping the project of any remaining moral or legal claim to self-determination.
Statehood is built on consent and cohesion. When recognition demands conquest, the math is simple: collapse is inevitable.

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WAPMEN Special Report 
Israel’s unilateral recognition of Somaliland did not merely shock Mogadishu; it sent tremors through European chancelleries. For three decades, the European Union perfected a carefully calibrated ambiguity: engage Hargeisa without legitimizing secession; fund development without touching sovereignty. Israel shattered that comfort zone. What we are witnessing now is not European curiosity—it is European damage control, strategic hedging, and quiet repositioning.
This is not diplomacy as idealism. This is diplomacy under pressure.
1. Israel Lit the Match, Europe Smells the Smoke
By recognizing Somaliland, Israel crossed a line the West had treated as taboo since 1991. The move punctured the long-standing international consensus anchored in Somalia’s territorial integrity and African Union red lines.
Europe understands precedents. One recognition becomes a reference point; two become momentum. Brussels knows that silence now equals consent later. Hence the sudden uptick in EU statements, visits, briefings, and “reaffirmations” of Somalia’s unity—paired, tellingly, with expanded technical engagement with Somaliland.
This is the EU talking out of both sides of its mouth—and doing so deliberately.
2. The EU’s Double Message: Law in Public, Realpolitik in Practice
Publicly, the EU repeats the catechism:
Somalia’s sovereignty is inviolable.
Recognition must follow dialogue and multilateral consensus.
Unilateral moves are destabilizing.
Privately—and increasingly operationally—the EU is:
Deepening contacts with Hargeisa,
Exploring trade, logistics, and development corridors,
Re-evaluating Berbera’s role in Red Sea and Gulf of Aden security,
Treating Somaliland as a functional geopolitical unit, if not a state.
This is not hypocrisy. It is European pragmatism colliding with European anxiety.
The Horn of Africa is no longer peripheral. It sits at the crossroads of:
Red Sea militarization,
Gaza–Iran–Yemen spillovers,
Gulf rivalries,
Great-power competition.
Europe cannot afford blind spots. And Somaliland—recognized or not—sits on one of the most strategic coastlines on the planet.
3. Why Somaliland Matters More Than Brussels Admits
Strip away the legal language and the picture is stark:
Geography: Somaliland is located on the coastline facing one of the world’s busiest maritime chokepoints.
Stability optics: Compared to southern Somalia, it projects order, predictability, and administrative continuity.
Competition: UAE, Turkey, China, Gulf states, and now Israel are active. Europe risks irrelevance if it stays doctrinaire.
Israel’s move forced the EU to confront a question it avoided for years:
Can we continue pretending Somaliland is merely a local administration when others treat it as a strategic partner?
The answer, quietly, is no.
4. Somalia Pays the Price of Strategic Drift
Let us be blunt: Europe’s renewed interest in Somaliland is also an indictment of Mogadishu.
A strong, inclusive, constitutional Somali state would leave little room for such maneuvering. Instead, Somalia offers:
Endless constitutional improvisation,
Center–periphery warfare by decree,
Mandate extensions and legitimacy crises,
Zero coherent national strategy toward Somaliland.
In that vacuum, foreign actors step in. Not out of malice—but opportunity.
Europe is not rewarding secession; it is insuring itself against Somali state failure.
5. The Dangerous Middle Ground Ahead
The EU’s current path—engagement without recognition—creates a volatile gray zone:
It emboldens Somaliland elites to believe recognition is inevitable.
It weakens Somalia’s negotiating leverage.
It internationalizes an internal Somali dispute.
It normalizes external actors shaping Somalia’s territorial future.
History is unforgiving to countries that outsource their sovereignty disputes to foreign capitals.
6. The WAPMEN Verdict
Israel’s recognition was a geopolitical earthquake. The EU’s renewed interest in Somaliland is the aftershock.
Europe is not choosing sides yet—but it is repositioning pieces on the board. Law provides cover; strategy drives action. Somalia’s unity is still the official doctrine, but Somaliland is now firmly on Europe’s strategic radar, not as a footnote, but as a contingency.
The real question is not what Europe will do next.
It is whether Somalis will finally:
Speak with one constitutional voice,
Rebuild a consensual federal compact,
Or watch their country slowly re-mapped by others, one “pragmatic engagement” at a time.
WAPMEN warning:
When foreign powers start “taking renewed interest” in unresolved internal questions, history tells us one thing—they are preparing for outcomes you failed to shape yourself.

——–

Warsame Policy & Media ( WAPMEN)
Fearless, independent journalism speaking truth to power across Somalia and the region.

Another week, another masterclass in political theatre from Villa Somalia. The stage lights dim, a single spotlight hits the podium, and a solemn decree is read: The Federal Government of Somalia severs ties with the United Arab Emirates. Cue the dramatic music, the murmurs of geopolitics, the swirling analysis in foreign capitals. But in the wings, two crucial actors stand frozen, scripts in hand, mouths agape. Their names? Puntland and Jubaland. Their line? They don’t have one. They weren’t given a part in this particular scene.

The plot, as it unfolds, is a farce of such staggering audacity it would make Mogadishu water-fetching donkeys blush. Here is a decision with tectonic implications: slamming shut a door to a nation that has been a primary investor in infrastructure, a key security partner in the fight against Al-Shabaab, and a critical economic lifeline for regions outside the Mogadishu bubble. And it is taken with the consultative grace of a royal decree in an absolute monarchy. The “F” in “FGS,” it seems, stands for “Figment.”

Let’s dissect the grim comedy. The UAE’s footprint is not centralized in the marble halls of Mogadishu. It is in Bosaso’s port, critical to Puntland’s economy and fighting against ISIS in Calmiskaad Mountains. It is in training and equipping Jubaland’s security forces, who are dying on the front lines against extremists every day. To cut this cord without so much as a courtesy call to Garowe or Kismayo is not merely an oversight; it is a blatant declaration that the lived realities, economic survival, and security of millions of Somalis in these states are disposable collateral in Mogadishu’s grand, solitary political calculations.

So, we must ask the question that the architects of this decision clearly consider irrelevant: Why on earth should Puntland or Jubaland comply?

The federal compact—that delicate, painstakingly negotiated idea etched into a provisional constitution—is not a suicide pact. Its core logic is shared burden, shared benefit, and shared decision-making on matters of national consequence. What, pray tell, could be more national than the abrupt alienation of a major Arab power whose influence and investment are hyper-localized in the very regions not consulted? This isn’t federalism; it is a colonial administration dressed in the cheap suit of a government, treating constituent states as recalcitrant provinces to be managed, not partners to be respected.

The message from Mogadishu is now crystalline: “Your investments are ours to obliterate. Your security partnerships are ours to annul. Your economic futures are ours to gamble. And your role is to applaud our sovereignty from the cheap seats.”

Well, here’s the twist in the script that Villa Somalia didn’t anticipate: you cannot build a nation by consistently telling half of it they don’t matter. You cannot demand loyalty while offering only contempt. You cannot preach unity from a podium of isolation.

Every unilateral, destabilizing move of this nature is not an assertion of federal authority; it is an excavation of its own grave. It is a signed affidavit to the people of Puntland, Jubaland, and every other emerging state that Mogadishu views the “federal project” as a one-way street: their resources, their men, their territory are federal concerns, but their voices and their existential interests are not.

The result? A predictable, self-inflicted wound. The fragile, tactical cooperation against Al-Shabaab—which depends entirely on trust and shared purpose between centre and periphery—is poisoned. Investment dries up, not in Mogadishu’s secure enclaves first, but in the regions that needed it most. And the already-gaping chasm of mistrust widens into a permanent geopolitical rift.

Perhaps that is the ultimate, tragic satire. In a desperate bid to project strong, centralized sovereignty to the outside world, Mogadishu has performed a powerful pantomime of its own irrelevance to the internal dynamics that actually determine Somalia’s fate. They have proven, yet again, that the greatest threat to Somali stability is not always in the thorn bushes of the Shabelle, but too often behind the high walls of the capital, where the illusion of control is mistaken for its reality.

The curtain has fallen on this act. The audience in Puntland and Jubaland is not applauding. They are walking out of the theatre, and discussing, in very serious tones, whether to build their own.

The Recognition That Broke the Dam

On December 26, 2025, a diplomatic bombshell shattered three decades of careful, if uneasy, consensus in the Horn of Africa. Israel became the first United Nations member state to recognize the breakaway Republic of Somaliland as an independent, sovereign nation. In the streets of Hargeisa, this was celebrated as a historic, long-overdue victory. In Mogadishu, and across the chancelleries of the world, it was seen for what it truly is: a reckless and self-serving act of geopolitical arson that has placed a tinderbox region on the brink of a multi-front conflict.

This is not merely a diplomatic spat. This is the story of how a single, calculated move by an external power—driven by its own maritime security agenda against Houthi rebels and a desire to counter Turkish influence in Somalia—has triggered a chain reaction that threatens to unravel Somalia’s fragile statehood, empower a deadly terrorist insurgency, and draw the entire Red Sea corridor into a devastating proxy war. The fuse is lit. The powder keg is Somalia.

Mogadishu’s Hammer Falls, and the Regions Defy

Faced with what it rightly terms an “existential threat” and a “flagrant assault” on its sovereignty, the Federal Government of Somalia was left with no choice but to respond with maximum force. Its target: the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which Mogadishu and analysts believe facilitated the Israeli move and has long been accused of cultivating influence in Somalia’s breakaway and autonomous regions at the expense of the central state.

On January 12, 2026, Somalia’s cabinet severed all agreements with the UAE. The annulment was total, covering the lifelines of port operations, security cooperation, and defense partnerships in Berbera (Somaliland), Bosaso (Puntland), and Kismayo (Jubaland). This was a declaration of economic and security war against a powerful patron, and a desperate bid to reassert federal authority.

The response from the regions was instantaneous and defiant. Somaliland dismissed Mogadishu’s authority as “daydreaming,” staunchly affirming the UAE as a “trusted friend”. The autonomous Federal Member States of Puntland and Jubaland, already in a bitter political feud with Mogadishu over constitutional changes, are poised to openly reject the federal decree. For them, the UAE is not an interloper but a crucial provider of investment, security training, and a counterweight to Mogadishu’s overreach. Somalia’s federal system, a fragile construct at the best of times, is now facing an immediate and possibly irreparable rupture.

The Great Gulf Rift Spills Over

The crisis has violently crystallized a broader, more dangerous fault line splitting the Horn of Africa. The region is no longer just managing its own conflicts; it has become the primary chessboard where a fierce rivalry between Gulf powers is being fought.

On one side stands the emerging “Axis of Secessionists”—an alliance of convenience between Israel and the UAE. Their strategy is networked and subversive: bypass central governments to back de facto independent entities and separatist movements. Their partners include Somaliland, the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in Yemen, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan. This axis prioritizes strategic footholds and commercial ports over state sovereignty.

Arrayed against them is a pro-sovereignty bloc championing the inviolability of borders. This camp includes Somalia’s federal government and its key backers: Turkey (which operates a large military base in Mogadishu), Qatar, Egypt, and significantly, Saudi Arabia. Riyadh’s alignment with Mogadishu is pivotal, marking a stark and growing divergence from its traditional ally, the UAE, and placing it opposite Israeli interests.

The Real Winner: Al-Shabaab

Amidst this high-stakes geopolitical maneuvering, only one actor is guaranteed to benefit: the terrorist group Al-Shabaab. Israel’s recognition has handed them a propaganda windfall of unimaginable value. They have swiftly reframed the crisis as a “Zionist invasion” and a “crusader project,” allowing them to rebrand from mere insurgents to defenders of Somali sovereignty and Islam.

This narrative is catastrophic for Somalia’s security. The government’s attention and resources are now catastrophically diverted from a hard-fought counterinsurgency to a national political crisis. As one analyst grimly noted, hard-won gains against Al-Shabaab risk unraveling as security fractures and public disillusionment grows in newly liberated areas. The potential for a strategic convergence between Al-Shabaab and Yemen’s Houthi rebels—who share an anti-Israel, anti-UAE agenda—creates a nightmare scenario of a unified militant front spanning the Red Sea’s shores.

A Continent at Risk: The Precedent of Fragmentation

The repercussions echo far beyond Somalia. The African Union’s bedrock principle since independence—uti possidetis, the sanctity of colonial borders—has been blatantly challenged. If stability and effective governance (arguments made for Somaliland) become grounds for recognition, it sets a dangerous precedent that separatist movements from Nigeria to Ethiopia will be watching closely. As Slovenia’s representative at the UN warned, foreign interference “does not arrive only with tanks and missiles,” but in quieter, equally damaging forms. This is a quiet assault on the entire post-colonial African order.

The Path Forward: From Spiral to Dialogue?

Several futures are now possible, most of them grim. The most likely is a managed stalemate: Somaliland gets symbolic Israeli recognition but no cascade of followers; Somalia remains distracted and weakened; Al-Shabaab regroups. More dangerous is strategic escalation, where a major power like Ethiopia, hungry for sea access, follows Israel’s lead, fracturing the AU and splitting the Horn into hostile blocs. The least likely but most catastrophic scenario is open military conflict, with Somalia attempting to blockade or retake Berbera with the help of its partners like Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, drawing in external powers and causing global trade through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait to seize up.

There is only one path back from the brink: an immediate cessation of external interference and a return to Somali-led dialogue. The international community, particularly the U.S., must unequivocally support Somalia’s territorial integrity and pressure all parties to de-escalate.

The nations of the Horn are not pawns. Their people are not collateral damage in someone else’s great game. The message to Tel Aviv, Abu Dhabi, and all other external actors must be clear and unified: Take your proxy war elsewhere. Let Somalia heal itself, or watch as the flames you ignited consume the region and burn you all.

Puntland is once again being summoned—to halls, forums, and carefully curated “consultations.” The Puntland State Presidency and the President Said Abdullahi Deni, have opened their doors to intellectuals, former public office holders, segments of the youth, and—selectively—traditional elders. The optics are impressive. The question is brutal: is this statesmanship, or is it federal electioneering in disguise?
This is not a semantic debate. It is the difference between leadership and choreography.

The Theater of Inclusion
Public consultations are not new to Puntland. They were foundational in 1998. They mattered because they were open, plural, and consequential. Today’s gatherings, however, feel filtered. Some elders are absent—not because they are irrelevant, but because relations with the presidency are strained. A consultation that excludes dissent is not consultation; it is confirmation bias with microphones.
You cannot claim consensus while pre-selecting the choir.

Timing Is Everything—and This Timing Is Loud
Why now? Why the sudden burst of listening tours, roundtables, and “national mood” readings? Puntland is approaching a critical junction in federal politics. Electoral rules, representation, and the balance between center and periphery are all in play. In such moments, leaders either build durable consensus or assemble campaign props.
If the exercise is genuine, outcomes should follow:
A clear agenda with published questions, not vague platitudes.
Inclusive representation, especially of critical elders and dissenting voices.
Transparent outputs—communiqués, timelines, and policy commitments.
A binding pathway from consultation to decision-making.
Absent these, the suspicion hardens: this is about positioning, not progress.
Youth as Backdrop, Not Drivers
The youth are present—photographed, applauded, quoted. But are they empowered? Or are they being used to project modernity while decisions remain sealed elsewhere? Token youth participation is worse than exclusion; it instrumentalizes hope.

Elders Divided, Society Fragmented
Traditional elders are not ornaments to be invited when convenient. They are custodians of social contracts. If some cannot be brought into the same room because of political grievances, that is precisely why the room must be opened wider, not narrower. Leadership is measured by the ability to reconcile adversaries, not avoid them.

The Test Ahead
The next few days will expose intentions. If this process culminates in:
unilateral announcements,
campaign-style messaging,
or silence after applause,
then Puntland will know it has witnessed a rehearsal, not a reckoning.
But if the presidency dares to publish disagreements, incorporate critics, and bind itself to collective decisions—even uncomfortable ones—then history will record this moment as a pivot forward.
Puntland does not need another performance. It needs purpose.
The people are watching. And this time, they are counting more than chairs filled—they are counting truths told and power shared.

Welcome back to the 1990s—where constitutions are decorative, term limits are optional, and mandates expire quietly while leaders cling loudly.
Somalia has perfected a political magic trick: elections without exits. The calendar moves forward, mandates run out, and yet the chairs remain warm—occupied by men who insist that legality is a suggestion and power is a lifetime subscription.
At the center of this farce sits Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, presiding over a republic where constitutionalism is invoked in speeches and buried in practice. His mandate ends, the law is clear, but the instinct is older than the constitution itself: stay. Stay for “stability.” Stay for “security.” Stay because the state is “fragile.” In Somalia, fragility is the excuse that never expires.
But let us be fair—this is not a solo performance. The presidents of the Federal Member States, many of them governing on borrowed time, have turned expired mandates into renewable leases. No elections? No problem. No legal basis? Minor inconvenience. The formula is simple: declare an “exception,” invoke a “process,” appoint a “committee,” and keep moving. The people will catch up later—if at all.
Thus, federalism without federal discipline mutates into a cartel of incumbents. Everyone agrees on one thing: nobody should leave first. This is Somalia’s new national consensus.
From Federalism to Feudalism
This is not federal governance; it is neo-warlordism in tailored suits. The warlords of the civil war era carried AK-47s and checkpoints. Today’s warlords carry decrees and security details. The methods have evolved; the mentality has not.
Then, authority flowed from the barrel of a gun. Now, it flows from the manipulation of delay. Back then, power was seized by force. Today, it is squatted upon—occupied until someone dares to remove it.
The constitution? Thrown out the window.
Term limits? Framed as Western luxuries.
Mandate expiration? Rebranded as “technical gaps.”

In this theater, legality is a costume worn for international donors and removed at home.
The Dangerous Lie of “Stability”
The most cynical line in this script is the claim that staying in power prevents chaos. History screams the opposite. Illegitimacy is the midwife of instability. When leaders outstay their mandates, they turn institutions into personal property and opponents into existential enemies.
This is how Somalia slides—not with a bang, but with a shrug—back toward the logic of the civil war: power belongs to whoever can hold it. Today it’s not militias; tomorrow it might be. The road is familiar.
A Republic on Expired Papers
Somalia is now governed by expired mandates arguing with each other about legality. The irony would be hilarious if the consequences were not so grave. A country that fought for decades to escape warlordism is now reinventing it—bureaucratically, politely, and with straight faces.
The warning signs are flashing in neon:
No clear succession
No respected timelines
No binding rules
When law bows to incumbency, warlordism doesn’t need guns—it just needs patience.
Somalia is not backsliding by accident. It is being walked backward deliberately, by leaders who fear the ballot more than the battlefield.
And when the next collapse comes—and it always does—these same men will look surprised, blame “spoilers,” and ask for yet another extension.
History, however, will call it by its real name:
Back to Warlordism.

BOSASO/GAROWE — A set of unverified social-media posts is fueling speculation that Saudi Arabia is preparing a major strategic opening toward Puntland, including maritime-security cooperation and large-scale investment tied to ports and logistics.
The posts — presented as “high-level intelligence assessments” — allege Riyadh has offered Puntland priority access to a Saudi “African Investment Fund” reportedly scaled to $23 billion for 2026, alongside coast guard and naval modernization packages and a broader plan to position Puntland as a key security and logistics node in the Gulf of Aden.

However, no official Saudi or Puntland statement has publicly announced such a partnership, and the specific funding vehicle referenced — an “African Investment Fund” at $23B — does not match a clearly identifiable, widely documented Saudi program in publicly available reporting as of this date. (Saudi engagement in Africa exists and is expanding, but the Puntland-specific “$23B fund” claim remains unsubstantiated.)

What is verified: Puntland’s ports are already a focal point for external partners
Puntland’s port infrastructure has already attracted major outside engagement, most notably DP World’s agreement to expand and upgrade the Port of Bosaso, which has been publicly announced by DP World and widely reported.
Separately, reporting in 2025 also discussed Garacad Port and potential external management/investment arrangements, including claims of UAE-based company involvement — though details and terms have been contested in Somali media.

The African Development Bank has also announced efforts to deepen cooperation with Saudi institutions to accelerate investment across the continent.

The posts argue the alleged Riyadh–Puntland move would counter emerging Red Sea pressures and rival alignments. It is true that Saudi Arabia has promoted a Red Sea regional framework: the Council of Arab and African States bordering the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has been described publicly as established under Saudi leadership with littoral-state membership that includes Somalia.
But nothing public confirms that this framework is being operationalized through a new, Puntland-only “security corridor,” as claimed in the circulating posts.

Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaaliya was announced with trumpet blasts and heroic adjectives. An alternative leadership, we were told. A corrective lens for a broken state. A platform bold enough to say what Villa Somalia refuses to hear. In short, the Future finally arrived—only to ask politely for permission to sit next to the Past.

Now comes the punchline.
Some members of this much-advertised “Future Council” are reportedly pushing for reform and negotiation with the same regime that has engineered Somalia’s deepest constitutional crisis and political paralysis in recent years—namely, the administration of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. One must admire the creativity. When history fails repeatedly, Somalia’s elites simply rebrand failure as dialogue.

This is not statesmanship. This is political recycling.

The Regime of Paralysis: A Record of Failure

To understand the folly of unconditional negotiation, one must first look at the record of the entity the Council seeks to engage. The Mohamud administration’s second term has been marked by a series of profound failures that have brought the state to the brink:

· A Constitutional Coup: In March 2024, the federal parliament, pushed by the executive, approved sweeping amendments. These changes included expanding presidential powers and unilaterally shifting to a universal suffrage model without consensus. This move was widely seen as a power grab that shattered the fragile federal pact, leading Puntland to withdraw recognition of the Federal Government altogether.
· Catastrophic Military Miscalculation: The regime launched an ill-planned and disastrous offensive against Al-Shabaab in central Somalia, which resulted in the decimation of elite Somali National Army units and empowered the insurgency. It then turned its weakened military inward, attacking Jubaland’s forces in December 2024, only to suffer a humiliating defeat that saw federal troops flee into Kenya.
· Governance as Corruption: Beyond the battlefield, the administration stands accused of unprecedented corruption, including the illegal sale of public land in Mogadishu—a scandal that displaced hundreds of thousands and eroded the last vestiges of public trust. Analysts note that international donor goodwill is evaporating, with Somalia perceived as a “black hole of accountability”.

This is the regime that the Future Council is being urged to “reform” through dialogue. This context is not incidental; it is the entire premise of the Council’s raison d’être.

The Council’s Composition and Crossroads

Formed in Nairobi in October 2025, the Council is a coalition of the National Salvation Forum and the Federal Member States of Puntland and Jubaland—the very states most defiant of Mogadishu’s overreach. Its founding figures include prominent opposition leaders like former Presidents Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, former Prime Ministers Hassan Ali Khaire and Mohamed Hussein Roble, and the elected presidents of Jubaland and Puntland, among others.

The Council’s declared aim is to safeguard Somalia’s democratic process and constitutional order against unilateral term extensions or power grabs. Its first major test and opportunity to define itself will be its inaugural general conference, slated for Kismayo, Jubaland, before the end of 2025.

This sets the stage for the critical dilemma: Will the Kismayo conference forge a firm, principled strategy backed by the collective leverage of its members? Or will it become another forum where the urgent call for change is diluted into closed-door “talks” with a regime that has mastered the art of absorbing and fragmenting its critics?

Negotiating with a Wall—and Calling It Wisdom

The Hassan Sheikh Mohamud regime has shown, consistently and unapologetically, that it does not negotiate in good faith; it weaponizes dialogue. It uses the spectacle of talks to divide opponents, tire out critics, and legitimize its own agenda. To approach such a system without hard red lines, a unified popular mandate, or a clear alternative institutional vision is not pragmatism—it is surrender dressed in the vocabulary of donor workshops.

The international community, wary of another collapse, has issued clear, if precarious, red lines: no unilateral term extension by the government, and no parallel political projects by the opposition. The Council’s strength lies in upholding the latter while vehemently holding the government to the former. Any negotiation that begins without these guarantees is not a step toward reform but a concession to illegitimacy.

A Future That Refuses to Break with Failure Is No Future at All

More than 70 percent of Somalia’s population is youth—young people with no memory of a functioning state and no patience for recycled elites holding recycled meetings. They were waiting for rupture, not reconciliation with decay.

Somalia does not suffer from a shortage of meetings. It suffers from a shortage of courage. The future generation does not need another council that mistakes access for influence and proximity for power. It needs leadership willing to confront illegitimacy, not normalize it.

Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaaliya was supposed to be a scalpel. It must not become a sponge, absorbing the very failures it was created to excise. If it cannot distinguish between engagement and entanglement, between reform and the rehabilitation of failure, then Somalia has not lost an opportunity—it has simply revealed another illusion.

And Somalia is running out of illusions to afford.

—

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[This article was edited after posting].

WAPMEN EDITORIAL

There is a quiet but corrosive confusion eating away at Puntland society — not a military threat, not a fiscal collapse, but a mental fracture. Many residents have reached a breaking point where they can no longer hold two ideas at once: Puntland and Somalia.
One thinker once asked: “Who can keep two opposing ideas in his head without losing his mind?”
The tragedy in Puntland today is that these ideas are not opposing at all — yet they are treated as mortal enemies.
On one side are those chanting “Puntland! Puntland!” as if Puntland were a besieged secessionist republic. On the other are those chanting “Somalia! Somalia!” as if Puntland were an illegal deviation from a unitary past that no longer exists. Each camp believes the other is committing political heresy. Each is trapped in illusion. And between them lies a society caught in intellectual paralysis.
This is not an ideological debate. It is a failure of civic education.

Puntland Is Not Anti-Somalia — And Somalia Is Not Anti-Puntland
Let us state this plainly, because too many leaders have failed to do so:
Puntland was created to save Somalia, not to escape it.
Federalism — imperfect, messy, and often abused — was designed to reconcile local self-rule with national unity. Puntland is not a substitute for Somalia, nor is Somalia a threat to Puntland’s existence. One is a federal member state, the other a federal republic. This is not rocket science. Yet decades after Puntland’s formation, large segments of the population still do not grasp this basic constitutional reality.
Why?
Because no successive Puntland administration invested seriously in civic education. No sustained effort was made to teach citizens what federalism means, what Puntland’s legal status is, where its powers begin and end, and how Somali unity actually functions in a post-1991 political order.
The result is a vacuum — and vacuums are always filled by slogans, rumors, clan narratives, and emotional politics.

A Civic Brainstorming That Exposed a Deeper Deficit
Appraising yesterday’s civic brainstorming at the Puntland State Presidency — and observing the general political mood expressed in individual remarks and group discussions — one thing stood out with unsettling clarity: the central role of government and the education sector in producing this confusion.
The questions raised, the anxieties voiced, and the contradictions openly displayed were not signs of public apathy. They were symptoms of institutional neglect. People were not confused because they are incapable of understanding federalism; they were confused because no one systematically taught it to them.
When citizens debate the very existence of Puntland versus Somalia inside a federal system, the problem is not the audience — it is the curriculum, the messaging, and the silence of those entrusted with public instruction.
Civic awareness does not emerge spontaneously. It must be cultivated — in schools, universities, civil-service training, public media, and official discourse. Puntland’s government and education authorities abdicated this responsibility for years, and yesterday’s brainstorming merely held up a mirror.

Confusion Produces Flight, Not Loyalty
This mental split has real consequences. When people feel forced to choose between Puntland and Somalia — instead of understanding how the two coexist — they disengage. Some retreat into cynicism. Others relocate physically, politically, or psychologically. You see it in migration patterns, in political apathy, and in how easily external actors exploit internal uncertainty.
A society unsure of its political identity is easy to manipulate.
And manipulation thrives where education is absent.

Leadership Failure, Not Public Ignorance
Let us be clear: this is not the fault of ordinary citizens. It is a leadership failure — collective, prolonged, and unforgivable.
Puntland’s administrations governed budgets, ports, and security forces, but neglected the most critical infrastructure of all: the civic mind. They assumed people would “just understand” federalism by osmosis. They were wrong.
You cannot build a stable polity on assumptions. You must teach it, explain it, debate it, and reinforce it — relentlessly.
Until the Confusion Is Addressed, Instability Will Persist
As long as Puntlanders are trapped in a false binary — Puntland versus Somalia — the region will continue to bleed cohesion. Unity will remain rhetorical. Federalism will remain misunderstood. And politics will remain emotional rather than institutional.
The cure is not louder slogans.
It is serious civic education, honest leadership, and institutional courage.
Puntland and Somalia are not mutually exclusive ideas.
They are incomplete without each other.
Until Puntland’s leaders finally grasp — and teach — that simple fact, this confusion will remain not just a debate, but a danger.

EDITORIAL
Today’s all-day consultation convened by the President of Puntland State of Somalia, Said Abdullahi Deni, was not an ordinary meeting. It was a rare convergence of accumulated state memory: former cabinet ministers, ex-parliamentarians, veteran security commanders, and leading intellectuals—nearly one hundred minds shaped by war, peace, institution-building, and the hard lessons of Somali federalism. Such a gathering carries a responsibility larger than a communique. It demands elevation.
What unfolded in the Puntland State Presidency at outskirts of Garowe today was not merely “brainstorming.” It was a de facto congress—without the name, mandate, or legitimacy to match its gravity. And that mismatch matters.

Puntland at an Inflection Point
Somalia and the Horn of Africa are entering a dangerous phase: contested sovereignties, collapsing regional norms, external interventions masquerading as partnerships, and an increasingly erratic federal center. Puntland sits at the intersection of these storms—security pressures from extremist networks, constitutional overreach from Mogadishu, and geopolitical tremors from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
At such moments, process becomes substance. History teaches that decisions taken without broad legitimacy—even if correct—are easily delegitimized, resisted, or reversed. Puntland’s own founding in 1998 was not an executive decree; it was a grass-roots congress, painstakingly assembled to produce collective ownership and political durability (cf. Puntland State Formation Conference, Garowe, 1998).

Consultation Is Not Enough
A consultation advises power. A congress authorizes it.
The distinction is not semantic. Under Somalia’s federal dispensation, strategic actions—especially those touching security posture, inter-state relations, and constitutional interpretation—derive legitimacy from collective deliberation, not presidential briefings. This principle is embedded in the logic of the Provisional Federal Constitution, which recognizes shared sovereignty between federal institutions and member states, and—critically—between governments and their constituencies (Somalia Provisional Constitution, Arts. 1, 50).
By stopping at consultation, Puntland risks undercutting the very strategic clarity it seeks. Worse, it signals caution where confidence is required.

Why a Puntland Congress Matters—Now
Transforming this elite gathering into a Puntland Congress would do three essential things:

Anchor Strategy in Legitimacy
Decisions emerging from a congress carry moral and political weight that no executive statement can replicate. They bind institutions, unify elites, and reassure the public that Puntland is acting collectively—not reactively.

Reclaim Institutional Memory
Puntland’s veterans are not ceremonial figures. They are custodians of precedents forged through civil war, state collapse, and regional brinkmanship. A congress converts memory into policy.

Signal Readiness to Friends and Foes
In a region where perception often precedes power, a congress announces seriousness. It tells Mogadishu, neighbors, and international partners that Puntland’s next steps are not improvisations but the outcome of sovereign deliberation.

The Cost of Delay
Somalia’s tragedy is littered with missed moments—times when leaders chose expediency over institution-building. The result has been fragmentation, foreign manipulation, and perpetual crisis management. Puntland has long claimed to be different: rule-based, consultative, and grounded in consent.
This is the moment to prove it.
Elevating this consultation into a Puntland Congress is not a rebuke of the presidency; it is its completion. It would provide the President with a fortified mandate—one capable of sustaining difficult decisions in an unforgiving regional climate.

A Call to Courage
Great leadership is not defined by convening meetings, but by knowing when to formalize history. The brain power is already assembled. The issues are already grave. The hour is already late.
What remains is the courage to name this gathering what it truly is—and allow Puntland, once again, to lead Somalia not by noise, but by constitutional seriousness.

References (selected):
Somalia Provisional Federal Constitution (2012), Arts. 1, 50.
Puntland State Formation Conference (Garowe), 1998—foundational resolutions and communiqués.

——–
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Somalia’s tragedy is not merely one of collapse, but of an unending cycle of failed rebirths. The state did not fail solely because it lacked governments or resources. It has consistently failed to rebuild because its would-be architects—across the political spectrum and the clan map—have repeatedly chosen factional control over inclusive nation-building. The conduct of Mogadishu-centered elites since the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is a stark chapter in this longer story, but it is a symptom of a deeper, systemic disease.

Let us speak plainly, without nostalgia, tribal defensiveness, or historical amnesia.

A Distorted Genesis: The TFG and the Missed Moment

When the TFG was formed in 2004—painfully negotiated and internationally backed—it sought to return to Mogadishu. However, the narrative that city elites simply refused it entry oversimplifies a volatile reality. Mogadishu was not under a unified authority but fragmented among warlords. By 2006, power had consolidated under the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which brought a harsh but unprecedented stability. The TFG’s entry was not blocked by a petty refusal; it was rendered moot by the rise of a rival, popular governance project. The international and regional decision to empower the TFG to dismantle the ICU via a catastrophic Ethiopian invasion in 2006 was the true pivot. This foreign intervention, invited by a faction within the TFG but opposed by most Somalis, did not fill a passive vacuum. It actively destroyed a Somali political order and birthed the very extremist forces, like Al-Shabab, that would become the enduring crisis. The message became unmistakable: sovereignty was negotiable, and power could be outsourced.

That moment should have triggered national self-reflection. Instead, it inaugurated a politics of denial and dependency, where Somali elites learned to weaponize foreign patronage against domestic rivals.

Sabotaging Federalism: A System Designed to Fail

Federalism was not imposed; it was a Somali compromise to end the centralized tyranny that had fueled civil war. Yet, once codified, it was gutted in practice by a center that demanded obedience and by regional leaders who built personal fiefdoms. The system has collapsed into open confrontation. Puntland has suspended recognition of the federal government over constitutional disputes, while relations with Jubaland have broken down into federal intervention and armed clashes. This is not state-building. It is state capture by multiple, competing centers.

The failure is not Mogadishu’s alone. It is a collective failure of a political class that treats federal units not as pillars of a shared republic, but as clan-based franchises for resource capture and patronage. The “4.5” clan power-sharing model, intended as a temporary fix, has solidified into an engine of zero-sum competition, where governing is about dividing the spoils of port revenues and international aid rather than building common institutions.

The Somaliland Catastrophe and the Illusion of Silence

The most damning evidence of this systemic failure is the handling of Somaliland. For over three decades, successive governments in Mogadishu have oscillated between denial and empty rhetoric, mistaking inertia for strategy. This was not a problem that would fade. While Somalia fractured and talked to itself, Somaliland built de facto institutions. Mogadishu’s chronic irresponsibility created the space for others to act. The reckless Memorandum of Understanding with Ethiopia and the subsequent recognition by Israel in December 2025 were not merely diplomatic coups for Hargeisa; they were the direct harvest of Mogadishu’s strategic neglect. Yet, this too is a Somali tragedy, not a pure victory: Somaliland itself is fractured, its government struggling to control eastern regions that reject its independence project. A problem ignored mutates, but it does not resolve cleanly for anyone.

The Capital That Cannot Be a Capital

At the heart of Somalia’s predicament lies the deadly illusion that controlling Mogadishu equals controlling Somalia. The capital city is treated as a clan estate, the ultimate prize in a war of attrition. By refusing to share it—politically, symbolically, and administratively—dominant actors have turned it from a necessary unifying center into the primary centrifugal force of national fragmentation. This mentality is mirrored in regional state capitals, where local elites replicate the same politics of exclusion. The disease is national.

Failure to Diagnose: Confusing Symptoms for Causes

Worst of all, Somalia’s political class has never honestly diagnosed the illness. They blame foreign conspiracies while perfecting domestic sabotage. They seek foreign troops to hold off enemies created by previous foreign interventions. They confuse militia control with governance, and international recognition with legitimacy.

Somalia’s tragedy is not a lack of intellect or goodwill. Its tragedy is that the logic of its politics—shaped by the trauma of dictatorship, clan fracture, and foreign manipulation—rewards short-term predation over long-term construction. Those who claim to speak for the nation have consistently refused to listen—to history, to other Somalis, and to the clear lesson that no faction can build a state that belongs only to itself.

Until Somalia confronts this original sin—this systemic culture of exclusion, fragmentation, and denied sovereignty—no amount of conferences, constitutions, or foreign troops will save it. A state cannot be rebuilt by those who never accepted that it must belong to all. And Mogadishu will never be the capital of a nation until every Somali, from Hargeisa to Kismayo, believes it has stopped behaving like the capital of a faction. The curse is not the city, but the unbroken, ruinous politics practiced within it.

Thirteen years ago, Warsame Digital Media (WDM) was born out of a simple but dangerous idea: tell the truth, even when power is uncomfortable with it.
What began as a modest digital platform has grown into a trusted voice for independent Somali journalism, policy analysis, and unapologetic commentary—often standing alone when silence was safer, and conformity more rewarding.
For 13 years, WDM has:
Challenged authoritarian drift, corruption, and political deception
Defended federalism, constitutionalism, and collective sovereignty
Preserved institutional memory against deliberate amnesia
Given voice to citizens, scholars, and dissenters excluded from official narratives
Refused funding, patronage, or protection that demanded compromise
WDM has survived threats, censorship, character assassination, isolation, and financial hardship—not because the road was easy, but because the mission was necessary.
In an era of shrinking civic space, manufactured consent, and media capture, WDM chose the harder path: independence without apology.
This anniversary is not a celebration of longevity alone.
It is a reckoning—with those who abused power, distorted history, and mistook silence for consent.
To our readers, contributors, critics, and supporters across Somalia and the diaspora:
You kept this platform alive.
To those who hoped WDM would fade:
We are still here.
And to the next generation of truth-tellers:
The fight continues.
13 Years Strong.
13 Years Unbought.
13 Years Unbroken.
— Warsame Digital Media (WDM)

Executive Summary
This policy paper examines the legal status of colonial-era treaties between the British administration and northern Somali clans and assesses their relevance to post-1991 sovereignty claims. It argues that these treaties collectively established the British Somaliland Protectorate as a colonial administrative unit, not clan-owned sovereign entities. All such treaties were extinguished by the 1960 Union of British and Italian Somaliland, transferring sovereignty to a unified Somali Republic. The collapse of the Somali state in 1991 did not revive colonial treaties nor dissolve Somalia’s international legal personality. Consequently, Somaliland cannot obtain international recognition without Somalia’s consent through negotiation, as required by international law governing state continuity, territorial integrity, and secession.

1. Introduction
Since 1991, claims to sovereignty in northern Somalia have frequently invoked colonial-era treaties as a legal foundation for unilateral independence. This paper evaluates such claims against established principles of international law, including state succession, territorial integrity, and recognition. It demonstrates that colonial treaties do not confer enduring sovereign rights on clans and cannot be selectively resurrected to justify unilateral recognition.
2. Colonial Treaties and the Formation of the British Somaliland Protectorate
Treaties concluded between Britain and northern Somali clans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were instruments of colonial administration. Under international law, treaties concluded between colonial powers and non-state entities did not create sovereign equals nor vest sovereignty in local signatories (Shaw, 2017; Crawford, 2006).
Collectively, these agreements constituted the British Somaliland Protectorate, whose external borders were fixed by inter-imperial agreements between Britain and Italy. They did not:
Create independent clan states
Transfer sovereignty to clans
Establish inheritable territorial title
Colonial sovereignty resided exclusively in the administering power.
3. Dhulbahante Territory and Colonial Incorporation by Occupation
Dhulbahante territories were incorporated into the Protectorate through colonial occupation, following the defeat of Sayid Mohamed Abdulle Hassan and the collapse of the Dervish Movement. International law recognizes occupation as a lawful mode of colonial territorial acquisition during that period (Shaw, 2017).
This history confirms that the Protectorate was not a voluntary confederation of clans but a colonial construct established through mixed methods of treaty and force.
4. Colonial Borders vs. Clan Borders
International law distinguishes between administrative colonial borders and internal social or customary boundaries. Colonial borders defined the territorial scope of the colony for purposes of administration and later state succession; they did not abolish internal communal land tenure or clan territoriality (Crawford, 2006).
The principle later known as uti possidetis juris preserved colonial administrative borders at independence to prevent conflict—not to reallocate internal ownership or sovereignty (ICJ, Burkina Faso v. Mali, 1986).
5. Legal Extinguishment of Colonial Treaties by the 1960 Union
Upon independence and union in 1960, sovereignty passed from the colonial administrations to the Somali Republic as a single successor state. Under the law of state succession:
Colonial treaties lapse unless expressly preserved
Sovereignty vests in the successor state, not sub-state entities
Internal groups do not retain a right of unilateral withdrawal
This position is consistent with the Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties (1978) and customary international law (Crawford, 2006).
6. Post-1991 Collapse and the Continuity of the Somali State
The collapse of Somalia’s central government in 1991 did not terminate Somalia’s international legal personality. Under international law, statehood is not extinguished by governmental collapse (continuity doctrine). Somalia retained UN membership, treaty capacity, and territorial integrity (Shaw, 2017).
The International Court of Justice has repeatedly affirmed that internal instability does not dissolve statehood (Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall, Advisory Opinion, 2004).
7. Recognition, Secession, and the Requirement of Negotiated Consent
International law strongly disfavors unilateral secession from an existing sovereign state. Outside the context of decolonization, recognition of a breakaway entity requires the consent of the parent state, except in exceptional cases of remedial secession.
In its Kosovo Advisory Opinion (2010), the ICJ deliberately avoided recognizing a general right to unilateral secession and emphasized the primacy of territorial integrity in relations between states.
Somaliland’s case does not qualify as:
Decolonization (self-determination was exercised in 1960), nor
Remedial secession (no sustained denial of internal self-determination meeting the high threshold recognized in doctrine)
Accordingly:
Somaliland cannot lawfully obtain international recognition without Somalia’s consent
Such consent can only arise through formal negotiation with the internationally recognized Somali state
Recognition absent consent would violate Somalia’s territorial integrity under UN Charter Article 2(4) and UN General Assembly Resolution 2625 (1970)
International practice—from Sudan/South Sudan to Ethiopia/Eritrea—confirms that negotiated separation, not unilateral declaration, is the lawful pathway.
8. Policy Implications
For Somali stakeholders:
Sustainable political outcomes must be negotiated, inclusive, and legally grounded. Colonial reinterpretation offers no lawful shortcut.
For international actors:
Recognition without Somalia’s consent would contravene settled international norms and set a destabilizing precedent.
For mediation frameworks:
Dialogue should focus on negotiated constitutional or confederal arrangements rather than unilateral recognition strategies.

9. Conclusion
Colonial treaties in northern Somalia established a colonial administration, not sovereign clan entities. These treaties were extinguished by the 1960 Union, transferring sovereignty to a unified Somali state. The 1991 collapse did not revive colonial arrangements nor authorize unilateral secession.
Somaliland cannot secure international recognition without Somalia explicitly letting it go through negotiation. Any alternative approach lacks legal foundation and contradicts international law on state continuity, territorial integrity, and recognition.

References (International-Law Sources)
Crawford, J. (2006). The Creation of States in International Law (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Shaw, M. N. (2017). International Law (8th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
International Court of Justice (1986). Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso v. Mali), Judgment.
International Court of Justice (2004). Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion.
International Court of Justice (2010). Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo, Advisory Opinion.
United Nations (1945). Charter of the United Nations, Article 2(4).
United Nations General Assembly (1970). Resolution 2625 (XXV): Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations.
Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of Treaties (1978).

WAPMEN EDITORIAL

The mask has slipped. The pretense of a civilized international order has evaporated, revealing a hollow stage. When Israel razed Gaza, killing civilians en masse while the world watched—paralyzed, mute, complicit—we learned a brutal lesson: there is no referee left on the field.

That moment was not an aberration. It was a signal flare.

What followed was predictable. If impunity is rewarded, it becomes doctrine. If international law is optional for the powerful, it becomes irrelevant for everyone else. Gaza is not only a graveyard of innocents; it is the funeral of a global system.

The Death of the Umpire

Let us speak plainly: there is no United Nations anymore—not in any meaningful sense. There are buildings, budgets, and bureaucrats. There are speeches, statements, emergency sessions, and vetoes. But there is no enforcement, no moral authority, no deterrence. International law has been reduced to a pamphlet—waved by the weak, shredded by the strong.

Human rights? Selective. War crimes? Contextual. Genocide? Debated. Justice? Deferred—forever.

This is not a failure of capacity; it is a failure of will. The system was not overwhelmed; it was captured.

From Gaza to the World

Once the precedent is set, the contagion spreads. If mass killing can be televised without consequence, why should others restrain themselves? If borders can be violated with applause from allies, why respect sovereignty elsewhere?

Today the names whispered are Venezuela and Iran. Tomorrow, it will be someone else. The lesson has been absorbed: power, not principle, decides. Might does not just make right—it erases the question altogether.

We are not drifting toward chaos; we have institutionalized it.

The New Normal: Permanent War

What is emerging is not a single world war, but something more insidious: a permanent state of global confrontation—proxy wars, sanctions wars, cyber wars, economic strangulation, information warfare—all unfolding simultaneously, everywhere. The battlefield is no longer defined; it is ambient.

And the victims are always the same: civilians, the poor, the stateless, the voiceless. Gaza today. Somewhere else tomorrow.

This is not a future imagined by dystopian fiction; it is a present engineered by geopolitical arrogance.

Somalia and the Periphery Beware

For fragile states—Somalia among them—the implications are dire. When international law collapses, small nations lose their only shield. Sovereignty becomes negotiable. Recognition becomes transactional. Fragmentation becomes profitable for outsiders.

When the jungle rules, the smallest creatures are the first to be trampled.

A World Without Restraint

We were told “never again.” What they meant was “never again—for us.” The rest of humanity can queue for condolences.

This is the dreadful truth we now inhabit: a world without restraint, without accountability, without shame. A world where the powerful act first and explain later—if at all.

What we are waiting for now is not peace, but escalation. Not diplomacy, but alignment. Not justice, but survival.

The jungle is back. And it is hungry.

———-

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WAPMEN Editorial

When a sovereign state is openly violated, silence is never innocent. It is calculative.
In the wake of Israeli aggression—recognizing a region of Somalia as an independent state in brazen violation of international law—the world did not speak with one voice. Many did the right thing. Regional blocs, international organizations, and responsible states rose to defend Somalia’s territorial integrity, the sanctity of borders, and the fragile legal order that still pretends to govern international relations.
Others chose to wait.
This strategic silence—particularly from Somalia’s immediate neighborhood—is neither accidental nor benign. It reveals two uncomfortable truths that Mogadishu, Garowe, Hargeisa, and every Somali citizen must confront without illusion.

Silence Option One: Sinister Self-Interest

Some actors see Somalia not as a state to be defended, but as a chessboard to be exploited.
In a region already saturated with proxy wars, port rivalries, military basing, and intelligence games, Somalia’s fragmentation is not a tragedy—it is an opportunity. Silence, in this context, is consent by omission. It keeps doors open for future leverage:
Access to ports and airspace
Strategic footholds along the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden
Influence over fractured Somali authorities desperate for recognition or protection.
For these actors, condemning Israeli recognition would be inconvenient. It would limit their room to maneuver. So they wait, watch, and calculate—hoping Somalia’s weakness will ripen into concession.

Silence Option Two: Extortion by Delay

Others are practicing a more refined diplomacy: transactional patience.
They are withholding public support not because they disagree with Somalia’s position, but because they want something in return—quietly, privately, and urgently.
Votes. Contracts. Security arrangements. Diplomatic alignment. Intelligence cooperation.
This is not principled neutrality. It is leverage politics. Somalia’s sovereignty becomes a bargaining chip; its crisis, a negotiating table.
Time, they believe, will soften Somalia’s resolve.

International Law Is Not a Buffet

Let us be clear: the recognition of a breakaway region without the consent of the parent state violates the UN Charter, the principles of the United Nations, and the founding norms of the African Union. If these rules apply only when convenient, then no African state is safe—least of all those with internal tensions and unfinished nation-building projects.
Those who remain silent today are not hedging; they are eroding the very rules that protect them tomorrow.
Somalia Must Read the Room—Coldly
Somalia should welcome the solidarity it has received. But it must also document the silence.
History remembers who spoke when it mattered—and who calculated instead. Strategic ambiguity has consequences. When the precedent is set that borders can be redrawn by external actors, silence becomes complicity.
Somalia does not need heroes. It needs clarity.
And clarity begins with naming silence for what it is:
either self-interest masquerading as diplomacy,
or concessions dressed as patience.
Time will tell—but only if Somalia stops waiting for it to speak.

WAPMEN
Fearless analysis. Uncomfortable truths. No strategic silence.

There is a silent emergency stalking Somalia—not always announced by sirens, rarely the central debate in parliament, and too often a footnote in presidential speeches. It is the slow, grinding violence of an economic system that imports its prices and exports its sovereignty. The most damning question is not whether anyone is watching, but whether the watching is matched by action that reaches the poor.

A Country with a Currency It Cannot Control
Somalia’s economy runs on the US dollar, a foreign currency whose value is decided in Washington and global markets. When shocks hit—wars, banking crises, or interest rate hikes abroad—Somali households pay the price immediately. Bread costs more. Fuel spikes overnight.

This is the brutal arithmetic of a country that imports over 60% of its GDP. The poor are left naked before global storms. The woman selling vegetables earns in shillings but buys wholesale in dollars. The displaced family negotiates rent in a currency tied to recessions an ocean away.

The Illusion of Neutrality in a Digital Dollar Economy
Dollarization is not neutral; it is a regressive tax on the poor, but its mechanism is more modern than cash. The economy survives on fragile inflows of dollars from remittances (about 27% of GDP) and aid, which flow out just as fast to pay for imports, creating a chronic trade deficit exceeding $5 billion.

Most transactions use digital dollars via telecom networks. However, these companies can use the hard currency they collect for their own external business, creating an artificial scarcity of physical cash within Somalia. This paradox—a digital dollar economy starving for paper cash—drives up costs for everyone, especially those outside the digital fold.

The Chasm Between Institutional Reform and Daily Survival
Contrary to the claim that no one is watching, institutions are trying to build the watchtower in the middle of the storm. The Somali National Bureau of Statistics reports inflation, which was 3.9% as of October 2025. The Central Bank of Somalia (CBS) is actively reforming, with a dedicated policy group and a sequenced plan: first, build financial infrastructure and regulate mobile money; later, perhaps reintroduce a national currency.

Yet, these vital but technical reforms exist in a parallel universe to the daily crisis faced by the 54% of the population (over 10 million people) living below the poverty line. With nearly 400,000 youth entering the job market each year in a stagnant economy, per-capita income does not grow. This is the core disconnect: while experts design payment systems and regulations, mothers count coins that buy less every week.

Leaders Argue Over Power While the Foundation Cracks
The political sphere remains consumed by survival—the survival of leaders. Disputes over elections, federal power-sharing, and clan arithmetic create paralysis, preventing a unified response to the economic emergency.

While they quarrel, foreign powers and businesses deal with Somalia not as a sovereign state but as an unmanaged space, extracting ports, security contracts, and political loyalty. The state fragments, and the demographic pressure cooker ticks: 70% of the population is under 30, waiting for a future that is not being built at the speed it is needed.

What Must Be Said: The Fire and the Firehouse
A country that debates inflation statistics while ignoring the cost-of-living anguish is in crisis. A leadership that obsesses over staying in office while citizens sink into poverty is losing its way.

Somalia’s tragedy is not a lack of plans. It is the agonizing gap between long-term institutional rebuilding and immediate human desperation. The Central Bank is trying to rebuild the firehouse—creating a Financial Stability Committee, drafting new banking laws, launching national payment systems. But for the family watching their purchasing power burn, the reforms feel like a blueprint delivered as the embers fly.

The question is not “Who is watching the fire?” The CBS is watching. The Bureau of Statistics is measuring the smoke. The real, unanswered question is: Who will bridge the chasm between the reform documents in Mogadishu and the empty market stalls in Baidoa, Garowe, and Kismayo?

Until inflation, currency sovereignty, and social protection are treated with the same urgency as political survival, Somalia will remain what it is today: a nation where the house burns, not for lack of firefighters, but because they are building the fire engine next to the flames.

—

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https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP87T00289R000100460001-8.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com

A newly circulated declassified CIA document is being waved around as if it were a final arbiter of Somali history. It is not. On the critical question of the Somali resistance movements of the 1980s—and specifically the arrest of Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed—the document is factually wrong, historically careless, and politically misleading.
Let us be precise and put the record straight.
False Claim #1: Abdullahi Yusuf Opposed an SSDF–SNM Merger
False. Flatly false.
The document alleges that Abdullahi Yusuf opposed a merger between the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) and the Somali National Movement (SNM). This reverses reality.
Historical fact:
SSDF was the older, structured, and umbrella resistance movement—already composed of three organized factions—operating from Ethiopian territory years before SNM emerged as a major force. It was SNM that declined to join SSDF, not the other way around. The refusal was rooted in strategic autonomy and internal political calculations within SNM, not hostility or obstruction from SSDF leadership.
To suggest Abdullahi Yusuf blocked unity is to invert the burden of decision-making and misread the political dynamics of the era.
False Claim #2: Ethiopia Arrested Abdullahi Yusuf for Anti-Unity Politics
Again, false.
The CIA paper asserts that Ethiopian authorities detained Abdullahi Yusuf because he resisted inter-movement unity. That is a convenient fiction.
Historical fact:
Abdullahi Yusuf was arrested by order of Mengistu Haile-Mariam—not for opposing Somali unity, but for political disagreements over the control, direction, and independence of SSDF vis-à-vis Ethiopian security dictates. Addis Ababa expected compliance; Abdullahi Yusuf insisted on Somali decision-making autonomy.
That defiance had consequences.
This was a power struggle, not an ideological schism over unity.
What Really Happened
SSDF predated SNM and functioned as a multi-faction resistance platform.
SNM chose not to merge with SSDF; this was a strategic choice, not a rejection by SSDF.

Ethiopia arrested Abdullahi Yusuf because he resisted Ethiopian micromanagement of Somali resistance politics—not because he opposed unity.
The detention reflected Cold War patron–proxy tensions, not Somali inter-movement hostility.
These facts are well-known to participants, contemporaries, and serious historians of the Somali liberation era.
The Declassified Trap
Declassified does not mean accurate. Intelligence documents often capture:
Partial briefings
Informant bias.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17geZVDMge/

Strategic misinterpretation
Or outright political convenience
When such documents are lifted from their context and treated as gospel, history is not revealed—it is distorted.
Somalia’s past cannot be footnoted into existence by Langley memos written at a distance, filtered through regional agendas, and blind to internal Somali political realities.
WAPMEN Verdict
This CIA document fails the historical test. It misattributes motives, reverses agency, and erases the real cause of Abdullahi Yusuf’s arrest: his refusal to subordinate Somali resistance to foreign command.
Somalia deserves better than recycled intelligence myths masquerading as history.

————
WAPMEN — Warsame Policy & Media Network
Critical analysis, fearless rebuttals, and historical accountability.

The Israeli government’s recognition of Somaliland is not merely a diplomatic shock; it is a glaring symptom of chronic dysfunction at the heart of Somalia’s federal government in Villa Somalia. States do not fragment solely because of external conspiracies. They disintegrate when the governing center loses its legitimacy, competence, and authority, yet continues to issue commands as if its power were unchallenged.

For years, Mogadishu has issued proclamations it lacks the capacity to enforce. This “paper sovereignty” is dangerously exposed when a federal center, failing to secure even the wider vicinity of the capital, attempts to rule like a unitary command post. This contradiction invites defiance, accelerates the isolation of regions, and creates a vacuum that foreign powers are all too eager to fill. That door has now been kicked open.

Decrees Without Capacity Breed Fragmentation
A government that does not fully control its capital cannot credibly dictate the political destiny of distant regions. Yet Villa Somalia persists in a paradox: employing rhetoric of maximum centralization while possessing minimum state capacity. The result is a predictable spiral: regions hedge their bets, local elites seek external guarantors, and diplomacy becomes a transactional free-for-all.

Thus, the Israeli move is not because Somaliland discovered a magic key to recognition, but because Somalia’s federal center has neglected the hard, consensus-based work of unity. Instead of fostering negotiation, constitutional restraint, and genuine power-sharing, it has pursued unilateralism. Key Federal Member States like Puntland and Jubaland have suspended cooperation with Mogadishu over disputes about the 2026 electoral process, with some opposition groups forming a parallel “Council for the Future of Somalia”.

Security Failure and Political Overreach
The government’s fragility is most stark in the security sector. Despite an initial offensive, al-Shabaab has resurged, recapturing territory in Middle Shabelle and demonstrating the ability to launch high-profile attacks in Mogadishu, including a recent attempt on the president’s convoy. Meanwhile, the fight against the Islamic State in Somalia (ISS) in Puntland is being waged primarily by regional forces with little support from the federal government.

This security crisis unfolds alongside a political power grab. The government’s unilateral push for a “one person, one vote” model for the 2026 elections—an ideal most agree is currently unfeasible—is widely seen as a maneuver to concentrate power and extend its mandate. By unilaterally changing electoral laws and packing commissions with loyalists, Villa Somalia is dismantling the fragile federal settlement, not defending it.

The Open Market of Influence
Somalia’s internal incoherence has turned the country into an open market for foreign influence, where global actors bargain directly with sub-state authorities. The list is long: Israel, Turkey, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Gulf states all play their parts. This does not happen in a vacuum. It happens when the center cannot bind the periphery to a shared national project.

The international reaction to Israel’s move is telling. While it was celebrated in parts of Somaliland, it triggered widespread protests across Somalia and near-universal diplomatic condemnation. The African Union, Arab League, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and regional bloc IGAD all reaffirmed support for Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. This global stance highlights that the problem is not a lack of external support for Somali unity, but internal actions that erode it.

Has Villa Somalia Learned Anything?
That is the most damning question. The silence is an answer. There has been no fundamental reckoning, no admission that sovereignty cannot be enforced by press releases. Instead, we hear more orders and denunciations while the structural rot deepens. The government is now poised to assume the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council in January 2026—a symbolic victory that will only magnify its domestic contradictions on a global stage.

If Villa Somalia continues to confuse command with consent, Somalia will not merely face recognition gambits; it will face managed disintegration. The path back requires an urgent return to consensus: halting unilateral constitutional changes, agreeing on a feasible and inclusive electoral model for 2026, and rebuilding cooperative security frameworks with the Federal Member States.

WAPMEN’s bottom line:
You cannot shout unity from a palace you cannot project authority from. You cannot defend sovereignty while hollowing out federal trust. And you cannot stop foreign exploitation without first fixing the broken politics at the center. Until Villa Somalia learns this, every new “diplomatic shock” will be less a surprise and more an indictment.

The recognition of Somaliland by Israel is not a diplomatic breakthrough; it is a perilous trap. In a desperate bid to end three decades of international isolation, the leadership in Hargeisa has shaken hands with a partner that is itself increasingly isolated, morally compromised, and engaged in multiple regional wars. Far from unlocking a path to global acceptance, this move has triggered a unified wall of international condemnation, entangled Somaliland in the geopolitics of the Middle East, and exposed it to severe and unforeseen security and political risks.

A Chorus of Condemnation, Not a Bandwagon of Recognition

Contrary to Somaliland’s hopes, Israel’s move has not sparked a wave of followers. Instead, it has provoked a near-universal diplomatic backlash that has reinforced Somaliland’s isolation.

Somalia’s government, calling the recognition a “naked invasion” and an “existential threat,” has declared it null and void, vowing to pursue all diplomatic and legal avenues in response.

The response from regional and international bodies has been unequivocal:

· The African Union (AU) firmly rejected the move, warning it “sets a dangerous precedent” for peace and stability across the continent and undermines the sacrosanct principle of colonial-era borders.
· A bloc of 21 Arab and African nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation issued a joint statement condemning the recognition as a grave violation of international law.
· Key regional powers, including Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Djibouti, have all stood with Somalia, rejecting the agreement.
· The European Union and the United States have both publicly reaffirmed their commitment to Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. U.S. President Donald Trump, when asked, simply replied “no” to recognizing Somaliland.

This unified opposition makes it clear: Israel is not a key that unlocks doors; it is a pariah whose endorsement only bolsters the resolve of the international community to keep those doors shut.

Strategic Mirage: An Invisible and Vulnerable Partner

Israel’s primary strategic interest is blatantly transparent: to secure a foothold on the Red Sea opposite Yemen to counter the Houthi movement. However, this very objective guarantees that Israel cannot be the robust, visible partner Somaliland needs.

· A Covert, Not Open, Presence: Given the ferocity of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Houthis—which has included Israeli airstrikes leveling the Sana’a airport and Houthi drones striking deep inside Israel—any open Israeli presence in Hargeisa would instantly make Somaliland a direct target. Therefore, any Israeli involvement will necessarily be covert, intelligence-focused, and militarily limited, offering Somaliland little tangible security benefit while absorbing massive risk.
· The Houthi Veto: The Houthis have proven to be a resilient, strategically smart adversary that has withstood a years-long military campaign and continues to challenge Israel directly. They have explicitly stated they will not allow Israelis to function in the region. Their demonstrated capacity to strike distant targets means this is not an idle threat but a severe and imminent danger to Somaliland’s stability.

The Toxic Motivations Behind Netanyahu’s “Gift”

Somaliland’s recognition is less about Hargeisa and more about the desperate political calculations of Benjamin Netanyahu.

· A Diversion from Isolation: Netanyahu, besieged by war crimes allegations and unprecedented international isolation, is using this move as a low-cost diplomatic spectacle to create an illusion of statesmanship and break out of his pariah status.
· A Geopolitical Provocation: The move is a direct challenge to Turkey, a major supporter of Somalia’s government, and part of Israel’s broader rivalry for influence in the Horn of Africa and Red Sea.
· Tainted by the “Displacement” Shadow: Most alarmingly, analysts note that the recognition is entangled with discussions about the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. This associates Somaliland’s sovereign aspirations with a project of demographic erasure, poisoning its moral standing and aligning it with what much of the world views as a ongoing atrocity.

A Path to Peril, Not Prosperity

For Somaliland, the consequences of this gamble are dire and multifaceted:

1. Deepened Regional Hostility: The move has turned diplomatic frost into active hostility from its most important neighbors and the entire African bloc.
2. Fuel for Internal Fracture: It risks inflaming internal tensions within Somaliland’s own contested borders, particularly in the eastern regions like Sool and Sanaag, where allegiance to Somalia remains strong.
3. Security as a Target: Somaliland has volunteered to become a front in the Israel-Houthi-Iran conflict, jeopardizing its hard-won relative stability.
4. Symbolic, Not Material, Gain: With major powers refusing to follow Israel’s lead, Somaliland remains locked out of international financial institutions and meaningful multilateral aid.

Somaliland’s leaders have bet their people’s future on a partner who is using them as a pawn. True sovereignty and lasting recognition cannot be built on a foundation of geopolitical cynicism, widespread condemnation, and imminent security threats. The only viable path forward for Somaliland’s aspirations is not through a desperate pact with a pariah, but through good-faith, African-led dialogue with Mogadishu, supported by the international community that has just resoundingly rejected this dangerous shortcut. To ignore this reality is to court disaster.

Beware the Deluge of “Modern” City Transport — The Fekon & Bajaj Time Bomb (and the Case for an Import Ban)
They sold it to us as modernization. What we got instead is urban mayhem—and nowhere is the danger clearer than in Garowe.
Garowe is being quietly overrun by two machines that thrive in regulatory darkness: Fekon (two-wheeler motorcycles) and Bajaj (motorized rickshaws). Left unchecked, they will drown the city—physically, socially, and institutionally.

The Fekon–Bajaj Flood
They multiply faster than the city can breathe. They swarm intersections, mount sidewalks, choke drainage lines, and turn residential lanes into racetracks. Built for limited utility, they now operate everywhere—markets, schools, hospitals—without routes, inspections, or accountability.

This is not mobility. It is a mechanized anarchy.
When Informality Becomes a Weapon
Untrained drivers under daily cash pressure speed through crowds and ignore crossings. Accidents rise. Tempers flare. The victims are predictable: children, elders, women, and street vendors. The beneficiaries are fewer: importers, platform owners, and a shadow economy feeding on state absence.

A City on the Brink
Garowe’s roads were never designed for this volume or mix. Add ride-hailing cars, delivery bikes, minibuses, and scooters to the Fekon–Bajaj surge and you get gridlock with teeth—noise, fumes, near-misses, delayed emergencies, and eroding trust.
Every horn blast is a warning siren.

The Hard Decision We Must Face: Ban the Imports—Now
Regulation alone will not catch up with the flood. Puntland State must consider an immediate ban on the import of Fekon and Bajaj into urban centres—starting with Garowe—until a credible framework exists.
This is not anti-livelihood; it is pro-city survival.
What that means in practice:
Immediate moratorium on new Fekon and Bajaj imports into urban centres of Puntland State of Somalia.
Cap and freeze existing numbers; no new registrations.
Mandatory registration, licensing, and visible IDs for all existing units.
Designated routes and exclusion zones (schools, hospitals, pedestrian cores).
Safety standards (speed governors, lights, brakes, passenger limits).
Driver training and strict enforcement—no license, no road.
Public transport investment to absorb demand humanely and at scale.

Progress Is Discipline
Modernity is not how many engines you unleash; it is how well you govern movement. If Fekon and Bajaj are not halted and regulated today, they will rule Garowe tomorrow—by default, by force, by chaos.
This is a final notice. Pause the imports. Regulate what exists. Reclaim the streets. Or prepare to watch a promising capital choke on its own traffic.

WAPMEN warns today so we don’t mourn tomorrow.

There is a fundamental rule of statecraft: a nation that does not control its territory cannot control its destiny. For years, Somalia’s profound security challenges and fragmented governance have made its sovereignty negotiable in the eyes of rival foreign powers. Today, the most severe bill for this vulnerability has arrived.

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland as an independent state is not merely a provocative diplomatic act. It is the direct outcome of a long-term erosion of Somali sovereignty—an erosion accelerated by internal divisions and exploited by external actors pursuing their own strategic contests on Somali soil.

Sovereignty Hollowed Out: A Stage for Regional Rivalries
Somalia’s fragility has transformed it into an arena for regional and global competitions.The search results confirm a pattern of external interference:

1.  Gulf Rivalries: The Horn of Africa has become a theater for a “great game”-style contest, primarily between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with their competition playing out in Somalia’s political and economic spheres.
2.  Neighborhood Pressures: Ethiopia’s quest for sea access led to a controversial memorandum of understanding with Somaliland in early 2024, which Somalia condemned as a violation of its sovereignty. Turkey has positioned itself as a key mediator, brokering the Ankara Declaration between Ethiopia and Somalia in December 2024.
3.  Global Interests: Beyond the Gulf, countries including Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey have vested interests, often aligned in competing blocs.

The claim that Somalia “invited them all in at once” is an oversimplification. Engagement with these powers is often a necessity for a government grappling with an existential threat from al-Shabaab, which launched a major offensive in 2025. However, the consequence is a perilous dependency. As one analysis notes, a nation cannot reclaim sovereignty while it depends on foreign forces for its core security.

The Recognition Crisis: Symptom of a Larger Disease
Israel’s move is a stark exploitation of this fractured landscape.Key facts from the search results include:

1.  Israel framed its recognition as being “in the spirit of the Abraham Accords”.
2.  The international reaction was swift: Somalia rejected it as an “unlawful action”, and a broad coalition—including Egypt, Turkey, Djibouti, the African Union, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—reaffirmed support for Somalia’s unity and territorial integrity.
3.  Analysts warn this sets a dangerous precedent, making state recognition “transactional rather than principled” and risks emboldening other secessionist forces within Somalia’s federal system.

This crisis is not solely about Israel or Somaliland. It is about the cumulative effect of Somalia’s compromised sovereignty. A country where the federal government struggles to project authority, where federal states like Puntland and Jubaland have contested its authority, and where foreign partners fund, train, and build bases, inevitably finds its unity questioned in foreign capitals.

The Reckoning and the Path Forward
The battlefield in Somalia is multi-layered:against al-Shabaab, within its own political structures, and now against diplomatic maneuvers that threaten its map. The solution cannot be a wholesale rejection of foreign partnerships, which are currently essential for security. It must be the rigorous and unified pursuit of a coherent national strategy.

Somalia must anchor its foreign policy in unwavering national consensus. This means clearly defining its red lines, coordinating all external engagements through a single sovereign framework, and relentlessly building its own security institutions to reduce asymmetric dependencies. The alternative is to accept a permanent future as a geopolitical arena, where its borders and destiny are debated by others.

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WAPMEN Editorial

The silence is deafening—and it is dangerous.

On December 26, 2025, Israel became the first country to formally recognize the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, crossing a red line that international law draws in bold ink: respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is not diplomacy; it is provocation. It is not neutrality; it is a direct intervention. The Federal Government of Somalia immediately and rightly condemned this as an “unlawful step” and a “deliberate attack” on its sovereignty.

This moment demands clarity and courage, especially from Puntland State leaders.

A Naked Violation, Plain and Simple
Recognition of a breakaway territory without the consent of the parent state is a flagrant violation of core international principles.It contravenes the United Nations Charter and directly opposes the African Union’s foundational commitment—reaffirmed in its swift rejection of this move—to the “sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its Member States.” Furthermore, it spurns the clear stance of regional partners; a coalition of Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan, has jointly condemned the act as a violation of international law and a threat to regional stability.

Israel’s move disregards these norms with alarming ease, treating Somalia’s fragility as an opportunity. The message is chilling: when a state is weak, its borders become negotiable. That logic, if normalized, threatens every post-colonial state whose cohesion was forged through painful compromise and collective will.

Puntland Must Speak—Now
Puntland’s leaders cannot afford strategic ambiguity or tactical silence.This is not a Mogadishu-versus-Garowe quarrel; it is a Somalia-versus-fragmentation moment. Puntland’s historical claim to responsible federalism—grounded in consent, constitutionalism, and unity—demands a public, unequivocal condemnation of Israel’s action, aligning with the national position and the unified African and Arab stance.

Silence will be read as acquiescence. Hesitation will be interpreted as calculation. Both would be fatal to Puntland’s credibility and Somalia’s collective defense.

Federalism Is Not a License to Disintegrate
Somali federal member states exist to strengthen the republic,not to outsource sovereignty or shop for recognition abroad. Any foreign state that selectively recognizes Somali regions is not supporting self-determination—it is engineering partition. That path leads to Balkanization, proxy competition, and perpetual instability.

The response, as seen in the unified international condemnations, must be national and unequivocal: federal institutions, member states, elders, civil society, and the diaspora must speak with one voice.

The Call to Action
Somalia must continue to formally challenge this provocation through all diplomatic channels,regional bodies, and international forums, building upon the strong support already shown by the AU and Arab League. Federal member states must close ranks. Puntland must now lead by example—by speaking up, condemning the violation, and reaffirming Somalia’s territorial integrity without equivocation.

This is a test of sovereignty. It is also a test of leadership.

History will not be kind to those who watched their country carved up in silence.

—

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The outrage is loud. Social media is aflame. Statements are flying. Somalia’s political class has rediscovered its vocal cords—all because Israel has become the first United Nations member state to grant full diplomatic recognition to Somaliland.

Yes, the outrage is justified. This act is a serious assault on Somalia’s sovereignty and sets a dangerous precedent. It has rightly drawn condemnation from the international community, including from members of the League of Arab States who have rejected the move as a violation of international law. Saudi Arabia explicitly stated it contradicts international law and entrenches unilateral measures, while Egypt coordinated with regional partners to condemn it.

But let us be honest—brutally honest, as WAPMEN must be.

Israel did not invent Somalia’s dismemberment. It is merely the latest external actor to step into a vacuum of sovereignty that has been meticulously carved out by Somalis themselves over decades. The precedent was not set in Tel Aviv; it was nurtured in Villa Somalia and in regional presidential palaces.

Selective Outrage Is a Moral and Strategic Failure

Browse the internet and you will find wall-to-wall condemnation of Israel. Turkey, a close ally of Somalia, has enlisted firmly on Mogadishu’s side, calling Israel’s recognition “overt interference in Somalia’s domestic affairs”. Yet one question is conspicuously absent: What made Somalia so vulnerable to this?

The truth is, Israel’s move, while unprecedented in its formality, follows a well-worn path of external engagements with Somalia’s breakaway regions. Somaliland has for years cultivated informal ties with entities like Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates. Just months ago, Ethiopia pursued a memorandum of understanding that would have granted it sea access in exchange for recognizing Somaliland, backing down only under intense diplomatic pressure.

Why has no sustained outrage been directed at the domestic political vandalism that hollowed out Somali sovereignty long before any foreign power decided to formalize its fracture?

Somalia Was Not Betrayed Overnight — It Was Systematically Undermined

Somalia did not wake up to find itself dismembered. It has been methodically weakened by a ruling elite whose political culture has been identified by analysts as the primary impediment to state resurrection—a culture aloof from society and rooted in personal gain over national interest.

Federalism, conceived as a mechanism for shared governance, has been converted into a tool for fragmentation. We do not need to speak in abstractions.

· Puntland, following controversial constitutional amendments in March 2024, declared it would operate as an independent government. It later signed a separate cooperation agreement with Ethiopia, directly counter to Mogadishu’s authority.
· Jubaland, in November 2024, suspended all cooperation with the federal government after an arrest warrant was issued for its president. This political dispute has escalated into armed clashes between federal and regional forces.

These are not the actions of stakeholders in a collective republic. They are the hallmarks of quasi-states conducting parallel foreign and security policies. Once you normalize the defiance of the central state, do not act shocked when foreign capitals normalize the defiance of Somalia.

Recognition Is Not the Disease — It Is the Symptom

Israel’s recognition is a stark diagnosis of a profound sickness within.

A country whose leaders wage political war against their own federal units, whose center and regions consistently violate the provisional constitution for short-term advantage, and whose political class trades long-term sovereignty for immediate survival cannot credibly demand the world respect borders it fails to enforce itself.

Sovereignty is not declared; it is enforced—politically, legally, and institutionally. Somalia stopped enforcing it long ago.

The Silence on Leadership Failure Is Complicity

It is easy to point fingers outward. It is harder—but necessary—to confront the internal wreckage.

The same political class now crying foul over Israel—and now benefiting from the diplomatic solidarity of allies like Turkey and Arab states—has for years cheered constitutional violations when it suited them, applauded federal overreach to weaken rivals, and justified fragmentation when it brought leverage. They stayed silent as the very idea of a single Somali political will was eroded.

They planted the wind. Now they reap the whirlwind.

WAPMEN’s  Uncomfortable Conclusion

Israel’s move is dangerous and must be challenged with every diplomatic and legal tool available. The condemnations from Ankara, Riyadh, Cairo, and beyond are a necessary and welcome defense of international principles.

But Somalia’s greatest enemy is not in Tel Aviv. It is in the culture of impunity that treats the state as a disposable instrument rather than a collective trust. It is in the leadership failure that remains, as scholars have documented, the central obstacle to the state’s resuscitation.

Until Somali leaders are held accountable for dismantling their own country’s sovereignty—brick by brick, agreement by unauthorized agreement—foreign powers will continue to do what opportunists always do: step into the ruins and claim what the owners abandoned.

WAPMEN does not trade in illusions. We deal in causes, not symptoms.

And the cause of Somalia’s vulnerability is Somali political irresponsibility—first, foremost, and ongoing.

Israel’s formal recognition of Somaliland on December 26, 2025, is not a bolt from the blue. It is an invoice arriving—late, stamped, and payable—after years of Somalia behaving like a state that wants the title deed to unity but refuses to maintain the house of governance.

In geopolitical terms, recognition is rarely a moral reward; it is a transaction. Somaliland did not suddenly become “more real” today. It simply became more useful to an external actor. And Somalia, by becoming ungovernable, made the transaction cheaper.

What did we expect after making the country ungovernable? We expected exactly this.

When a federal center treats the Provisional Constitution as a suggestion box—opening the door to corruption, land grabs, and unconstitutional power plays—it does not “strengthen the state.” It advertises the state as for sale. The recent constitutional changes, which Puntland refused to recognize and which led it to withdraw from the federal system, are a prime example. Mogadishu was accused of “threatening national unity” by concentrating power.

This trajectory was not state-building; it was state-unbuilding.

For years, WDM has warned that Somalia’s federal experiment “has now entered its terminal crisis stage,” where relations between the center and member states have decayed into “mutual suspicion, coercion, and political trench warfare”—fertile ground for fragmentation. We explicitly framed Somalia’s future as a fork in the road: “A negotiated consensus” or “A dangerous fragmentation—where Mogadishu’s unilateralism spawns rival governments, contested institutions, and international confusion”.

We warned that the Garowe–Mogadishu confrontation was not political theatre, but a collision course that could breed “parallel governments (Garowe vs Mogadishu model)” and invite increased foreign meddling. We doubled down that delay is a strategy of cowards: “Somalia always pays more when it waits. More instability. More fragmentation. More foreign interference”.

So no—this is not “Somaliland winning.” This is Somalia defaulting.

The weaponization of the center normalized fragmentation.

The pattern of the federal center treating member states as targets, not partners, hardened in recent years. WDM documented that under the regimes of Farmaajo and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the National Consultative Council (NCC) was transformed from a dialogue platform into “a forum to pressure Puntland and Jubaland” and “a tool to override federalism”. Once a state normalizes internal war-by-politics, it should not act surprised when outsiders start treating its map as negotiable.

“Other countries to follow?” Yes—because the center taught them how.

Reuters frames Israel’s move as a “first”. That word is the danger. Once one country crosses the line, the next ones will not need to argue the entire case again. They will only need to ask: What do we gain? What does Mogadishu offer? What can Hargeisa deliver?

Somalia’s federal center, by violating the spirit and procedures of its own constitution, has made itself a weak negotiator—sometimes not even a negotiator at all, just a loud protester outside the room. This is the strategic humiliation: a state that cannot keep its own federation intact will struggle to keep its sovereignty arguments persuasive abroad.

How long have we been warning? Long enough that the warnings now look like minutes of a meeting Somalia refused to attend.

When WDM titles an essay “Garowe vs. Mogadishu: The Looming Political Collision Course” and explicitly lists fragmentation as a probable outcome, that is not commentary—it is an alarm. When WDM publishes “Somalia’s Federalism in Paralysis” and describes terminal decay, that is not pessimism—it is diagnosis. When WDM says Somalia must choose confederation or fragmentation, that is not provocation—it is an exit map from a burning building.

The Bottom Line

Somaliland’s recognition is not merely Somaliland’s diplomacy. It is Somalia’s self-inflicted emptiness being filled by other people’s interests.

If Mogadishu wants to stop the dominoes, it must stop behaving like a landlord who evicts tenants (member states), then screams “unity!” from the rooftop of a collapsing building.

Somalia’s unity cannot be enforced by decree, purchased by corruption, or performed on television. It must be negotiated, constitutionally, and collectively owned—or it will be internationally auctioned, piece by piece.

By the way, how much do you think the recent Somalia’s E-VISA controversy has contributed to this balkanization of Somalia? Have your say.

Citations

1. Garowe vs. Mogadishu: The Looming Political Collision Course. WDM Editorial, Nov 3 2025.
2. Somalia’s Federalism in Paralysis. WDM White Paper, Nov 27 2025.
3. The Price of Delay: Somalia’s Leaders Are Choosing Chaos Over Consensus. WDM Editorial, Dec 23 2025.
4. Somalia accused of ‘threatening national unity’ with new constitution. The Guardian, Apr 5 2024.
5. Israel becomes first country to formally recognise Somaliland as independent state. Reuters, Dec 26 2025.

A Satire by Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN)

In Somalia, there is a city living two lives—one of soaring ambition, the other of quiet desperation. Its name is Galkayo.

By day, Galkayo stands as a testament to Somali audacity. Its children, scattered across continents, have accomplished what governments draft in proposals and donors debate in conferences. They carved a deep-sea port from the rocky shores of Gara’ad—opening it in 2022—no permissions asked, no international aid requested. Now, they are rallying behind the Abdullahi Yusuf International Airport, with the business community reportedly proposing a $20 million investment—a bold statement that this city will not be left on the ground.

This is the Galkayo of cranes and wire transfers, of blueprints and belief. A city that proclaims: If the state will not come to us, we will become the state.

But when the sun sets, another Galkayo wakes.

This Galkayo is not measured in milestones, but in escapes. Its professionals, elders, and entrepreneurs slip away—sometimes with suitcases, often with only the clothes they wear—not because of drought or unemployment, but because of the silent, persistent terror of clan vendettas, the brutal cycle of “Aano” revenge killings that have claimed dozens of elite residents since 2022. Here, survival is the nightly agenda.

In this Galkayo, trash mounds rise like monuments to neglect. Rainwater, when it comes, has no plan but to flood—streets, homes, and hope alike—a direct result of a collapsed drainage system and municipal paralysis. Drainage exists in speeches. Public health is a rumor. The city decays without spectacle, eroding under apathy.

So we ask: What city builds an airport it cannot safely reach, where the key road link to Harfo is described as ‘one of the worst’ and remains stalled by political disputes? What logic builds a port to the world while its own neighborhoods drown in waste and fear?

This is not irony—it is civic schizophrenia.

Galkayo has perfected exporting dreams while importing disorder. Its diaspora funds monuments to tomorrow, while its politicians treat the city like a temporary settlement. Clan justice operates unchallenged—swifter than courts, deadlier than law, and more respected than any institution—in a documented vacuum of justice where promises of new police forces remain unfulfilled.

We speak always of “community resilience,” but never ask why resilience must do the work of government. We celebrate self-reliance, yet ignore why a city that can fund multimillion-dollar projects cannot broker a basic peace among its own or even collect the garbage.

The disconnect is no longer hidden—it is glaring, grotesque.

A city cannot be both a gateway to the world and a hostage to its own streets. You cannot court international flights while your citizens book one-way tickets out of fear. You cannot dredge an ocean for ships but not your own roads for rain. You cannot champion development while dismissing revenge killings as “tribal affairs.”

Galkayo must choose.

Will it be the city that builds—or the city that buries?

Because runways and ports do not make a home. Safety does. Dignity does. Law does. Without these, every poured foundation, every newly paved tarmac, will stand not as a symbol of progress—but as a tombstone for what Galkayo could have been.

A city reaching for the skies, yet unable to walk its own streets at night.

—

Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN).

Why Centralization, Term Extensions, and Constitutional Shortcuts Remain a Clear and Present Danger

WAPMEN EDITORIAL

Somalia’s problem is no longer confusion. It is amnesia.
The country keeps relearning the same lesson—at enormous cost—while its leaders insist on repeating the same behavior under new names, new slogans, and new excuses. Administrations change, but the instinct to centralize power, bypass consensus, and manipulate constitutional processes remains stubbornly intact.
Today, Somalia is led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Hamse Abdi Barre. The faces are different from 2019. The danger is not.
Federalism Was a Peace Settlement — Not a Courtesy to the Center
Somalia’s federal system was not adopted because it was fashionable. It was adopted because unchecked central authority destroyed the Somali state.
Federalism was the compromise that made reunification possible after civil war. It was the minimum condition for coexistence among mistrustful communities emerging from collapse. It was, in effect, a peace settlement disguised as a governance model.
Any federal leadership—past or present—that treats federalism as temporary, cosmetic, or negotiable by executive fiat is tampering with the foundations of the republic.
The Constitutional Review Trap: Same Playbook, New Actors
A constitution derives legitimacy from process, not presidential announcements.
Yet Somalia continues to flirt with the same dangerous pattern:
Closed-door constitutional engineering
Minimal public participation
Marginal consultation with Federal Member States
Political timing designed to shape electoral outcomes
This is not reform. It is constitutional ambush.
Whether attempted under previous administrations or revived under the current one, the result is identical: mistrust, resistance, and institutional paralysis.
A constitution rushed without consensus does not unify the country—it fractures it.
Term Extension Is Not Stability — It Is Deferred Crisis
Somalia’s leaders often justify mandate extensions in the name of stability. This is a fiction.
Term extension does not buy time; it burns legitimacy. It replaces consent with coercion and turns elections from solutions into triggers. The 2021 crisis proved this beyond debate.
Any attempt—explicit or disguised—to normalize term extensions under President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s administration would not be a technical adjustment. It would be a deliberate political gamble against Somalia’s fragile equilibrium.
Why Confederalism Refuses to Go Away
Confederalism did not enter Somali political discourse because Puntland or other Federal Member States woke up one day craving fragmentation.
It emerged because:
Federalism was violated, not respected
Power-sharing was undermined, not honored
Federal Member States were treated as administrative dependencies
When the center abandons partnership, the periphery explores protection.
Confederalism is not rebellion. It is a warning signal—a constitutional distress flare fired by communities that feel excluded from national decision-making.
Ignore it, and the union weakens further.
Puntland’s Position: Constitutional Self-Defense, Not Defiance
The stance of Puntland State of Somalia has consistently been mischaracterized as obstructionist.
In reality, Puntland has been defending:
The Provisional Federal Constitution
The principle of shared sovereignty
The idea that Somalia is a collective ownership state, not a Villa Somalia possession
Federalism survives only when limits are respected. When the center overreaches, resistance is not insubordination—it is constitutional self-defense.
The Choice Before the Current Leadership
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Hamse Abdi Barre face a clear choice:
Consensus or coercion
Dialogue or decrees
Legitimacy or longevity
Somalia does not need faster constitutions, stronger executives, or clever political shortcuts. It needs slower politics grounded in consent, inclusion, and restraint.
The cheapest option is always to do the right thing early. Somalia’s tragedy is that its leaders keep choosing the most expensive alternative—doing the wrong thing until the country pushes back.
Final Word
Federalism was meant to heal Somalia, not hollow it out.
Constitutions are meant to unite, not ambush.
Elections are meant to confer legitimacy, not postpone accountability.
Those who ignore these truths should not pretend surprise when the system resists.
Somalia has learned this lesson before.
The scandal is that it must keep learning it again.

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