By Ismail H. Warsame | Toronto

A claim resurfaces periodically in Somali popular history: that an ancient Egyptian pharaoh was “of Somali origin.” It is a compelling story, but it is not what the historical or scientific record shows. The real story is more interesting — and more defensible.
The Land of Punt
For over two thousand years, ancient Egypt maintained trade relations with a place its texts called Ta-Netjer, “Land of the God,” known to history as Punt. Egyptian expeditions brought back gold, myrrh, frankincense, ebony, and live animals including giraffes and baboons. The most famous expedition, under Queen Hatshepsut around 1470 BCE, is memorialized in detailed reliefs at Deir el-Bahari.
Punt’s exact location has been debated by Egyptologists since the 1820s, when Jean-François Champollion’s decipherment of hieroglyphs first opened the question. Early researchers searched everywhere from Yemen to Zimbabwe before the debate settled into two competing camps: the Horn of Africa or the Arabian Peninsula.
Where the Evidence Points
The case for a Horn of Africa location has strengthened considerably in recent decades:
Isotope analysis of mummified baboons found in Egyptian tombs — animals that were reportedly imports from Punt — traced their origins to the region spanning modern Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Somalia, with a 2020 follow-up study finding the closest match in eastern Somalia and the Eritrea-Ethiopia corridor.
The goods the Egyptians brought back — gold, ivory, ebony, and African wildlife absent from Arabia — point toward an African rather than Arabian source.
Auguste Mariette, one of the earliest excavators of the Punt reliefs, settled on the Somali coast as Punt’s likely location, noting the region’s long association with frankincense and myrrh.
Puntland’s own name is a direct nod to this history. Today, most historians place Punt broadly across the coastal territories of Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan, and northeast Ethiopia, though a minority still argue for an Arabian or partly Arabian location, and the exact boundaries remain unsettled among specialists.
Where the Evidence Does Not Point
Being a trading partner of ancient Egypt — even a favored one, tied to the gods in Egyptian religious imagination — is not the same as ethnic or dynastic origin. The pharaonic line is documented in the archaeological and genetic record as a Nile Valley Egyptian civilization. “Somali” itself is a much later ethnic and national identity; projecting it onto a Bronze Age ruling dynasty conflates a real, still-debated geography question with a claim the evidence simply does not support.
A Coastline With a Long Memory
This is not the region’s only claim to ancient strategic importance. Cape Guardafui, at the very tip of the Horn, has functioned as a maritime chokepoint for millennia — a role WDM has previously examined in the context of Italian colonial-era navigation fees and the cape’s modern significance to Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shipping. The Punt evidence adds an earlier chapter to that same story: this coastline was central to global trade routes not just under 20th-century colonial administrations, but as far back as Pharaonic Egypt.
Why This Distinction Matters
Somalia’s ancient ties to Egypt through Punt are a genuine and remarkable part of the region’s history — one grounded in isotope science, Egyptological scholarship, and millennia of documented trade. That history stands on its own. It does not need embellishment, and claims that overreach it — like asserting a pharaoh was ethnically Somali — end up undermining a story that is already well-supported by evidence.

—-
Sources: World History Encyclopedia; PBS/NOVA; Simple English Wikipedia, “Land of Punt”; NSF Stories on mummified baboon isotope research; Wikipedia, “Land of Punt.”

A WDM Editorial

Sometimes history is recovered from archives. Sometimes it emerges from the mouth of a man who was actually in the room.
Ambassador Hussein Ali Duale — better known as Ambassador Awil — has been both witness and participant in some extraordinary chapters of modern Somali political history. His extended Geed Fadhi interview therefore deserves more than the usual Somali political reaction of applause from one camp and denunciation from another.
It deserves an examination.
And once examined against Awil’s previously published memoir material and accounts of the events he discusses, parts of his testimony are remarkably well corroborated.
Three episodes stand out: the intervention by Somaliland leaders with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi during Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s presidency; Awil’s argument that Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s uncompromising approach toward Somaliland helped drive Hargeisa toward Israel; and Awil’s own participation in the failed military revolt in northern Somalia in December 1961.
These are not three disconnected anecdotes. Together they illuminate a persistent Somali political habit: when domestic political accommodation fails, Somali actors repeatedly seek leverage outside the Somali political arena.
That habit is older than today’s leaders, older than Somaliland’s declaration of separation and almost as old as the Somali Republic itself.

The Riyale-Awil Mission to Meles Zenawi
The most politically explosive part of Awil’s story concerns the government of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.
Here, precision matters.
It would be excessive to claim, without additional documentary evidence, that Awil, Somaliland President Dahir Riyale Kahin and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi entered into a formal “conspiracy” to overthrow Abdullahi Yusuf.
But what Awil himself says happened is serious enough without exaggeration.
His account did not begin with the recent Geed Fadhi interview. Material from his memoirs published by Geeska Afrika in 2016 provides an unusually detailed description of the episode.
According to Awil, after Ethiopian troops had entered Somalia, Meles invited President Riyale to Addis Ababa. Awil, then Somaliland’s finance minister, accompanied him because the foreign minister was abroad.
Meles reportedly asked Riyale for his assessment of Ethiopia’s intervention and specifically expressed concern that Ethiopian forces could become trapped in an uprising by Hawiye constituencies in Mogadishu.
Riyale’s response, according to Awil, was extraordinary.
He advised Meles not to permit Abdullahi Yusuf to use Ethiopian forces against the Hawiye and portrayed Yusuf’s objectives as essentially retaliatory rather than state-building.
Then Meles asked Awil to speak.
Awil says he went considerably further. He described Abdullahi Yusuf in deeply hostile political and clan terms and argued that Yusuf’s objective was not the reconstruction of Somalia but the destruction of Hawiye political and economic power.
That is not an allegation made today by Abdullahi Yusuf’s supporters.
It is Awil’s own account of what Awil told Meles Zenawi.
There is an important distinction.
We cannot independently establish that everything said during that closed meeting happened exactly as Awil remembers it. Nor can we establish that the advice given by Riyale and Awil determined subsequent Ethiopian policy.
But we can establish that Awil publicly recorded this version of events years before the present interview.
That gives his latest recollections substantial historical weight.
Advising the Power Behind the TFG
The political significance is difficult to overstate.
Ethiopia was not an ordinary neighbouring government at the time.
Its military intervention in late 2006 had been decisive in driving the Islamic Courts Union from Mogadishu and allowing the Transitional Federal Government to establish itself in the capital. Ethiopian troops consequently possessed enormous military leverage over the political environment in which Abdullahi Yusuf governed.
And here were two senior Somaliland figures — its president and finance minister — advising Meles about how Ethiopia should handle the president of Somalia.
Whatever terminology one prefers — lobbying, political intervention, strategic advice or manoeuvring — this was certainly not neutrality.
It also exposes one of the magnificent contradictions of Somali politics.
Somaliland has spent decades condemning interference from Mogadishu in its affairs.
Yet one of its most senior former officials proudly recounts travelling with his president to Addis Ababa and advising the Ethiopian prime minister about how he should constrain the policies of the Somali president.
Apparently interference is objectionable only when the aircraft flies in the opposite direction.
There is another fascinating piece of evidence. In the same memoir material, Awil recalled Somaliland’s immediate condemnation of Abdullahi Yusuf after his election in October 2004. He also recounted an Ethiopian official telling him that Somaliland’s condemnation could damage Yusuf’s international momentum.
The hostility therefore preceded the later meeting with Meles.
This was not spontaneous advice delivered over Ethiopian coffee.
There was political history behind it.

Did They Bring Down Abdullahi Yusuf?
Here WDM should resist turning evidence into mythology.
Abdullahi Yusuf’s resignation in December 2008 resulted from a much larger crisis: his confrontation with Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, deteriorating relations with Ethiopia, international pressure, the insurgency and profound disagreements over the Djibouti political process.
It would therefore be historically reckless to declare that Riyale and Awil “removed Abdullahi Yusuf.”
They did not possess that power.
But Awil’s testimony supports something narrower and still politically consequential: Somaliland’s leadership attempted to influence Ethiopia’s policy toward Abdullahi Yusuf at a time when Ethiopia was the external actor with the greatest immediate leverage over his government.
That is the defensible conclusion.
WDM does not need to inflate the evidence. The evidence is damaging enough at its actual size.
Hassan Sheikh, Somaliland and Israel
Awil’s second argument requires a different standard.
He reportedly contends that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s refusal to compromise or pursue meaningful reconciliation with Somaliland helped push Hargeisa toward Israel and eventual Israeli recognition.
This should be described precisely for what it is:
Awil’s political interpretation.
It is not yet an independently established chain of causation.
Somaliland’s pursuit of international recognition is decades old. It dates to its 1991 declaration that it had restored the sovereignty of the former British Somaliland protectorate. Its diplomatic outreach therefore cannot reasonably be explained by Hassan Sheikh’s current policies alone.
The more defensible argument is subtler.
If Awil’s point is that the deterioration of Mogadishu-Hargeisa relations convinced Somaliland’s leadership that negotiations within the Somali political framework were exhausted, and consequently increased its incentive to seek unconventional international partnerships, that is a legitimate political argument.
But Israel’s decision to recognize Somaliland must also be understood through Israel’s own strategic interests.
Foreign governments rarely redesign regional policy simply because Somali politicians have stopped talking to one another.
The Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Yemen, Berbera and the wider security architecture of the Horn matter.
Somaliland wanted recognition.
Israel had strategic calculations of its own.
Those interests eventually intersected.
Hassan Sheikh’s policies may have contributed to the political environment. They cannot alone explain the outcome.
That distinction strengthens Awil’s argument rather than weakening it because serious political analysis should never confuse contributing conditions with exclusive causes.
Then Comes the Most Remarkable Admission: 1961.

The third episode is far easier to verify.
Awil was indeed one of the young northern military officers involved in the failed coup of 10 December 1961, barely eighteen months after the independence and union of the former British Somaliland and Italian-administered Somalia.
Historical accounts specifically identify Awil Ali Duale alongside Abdillahi Aden “Congo,” Abdillahi Said Abby and other junior officers involved in the revolt.
Their grievances concerned the political and military arrangements following union.
Northern officers believed that former Somaliland personnel were being treated unfairly in promotions, command structures and appointments. Some travelled to Mogadishu to raise their complaints with senior military leadership but felt that those grievances had been dismissed.
Then grievance became mutiny.
The conspirators detained senior officers, including Colonel Mohamed Ainanshe and — in another extraordinary historical intersection — Abdullahi Yusuf himself. Radio Hargeisa and other strategic facilities were targeted. The attempt quickly collapsed after loyal soldiers discovered what had happened.
Awil’s involvement is therefore not speculation.
Accounts based partly upon the recollections of Awil and Abdillahi Aden explicitly identify both men as participants.
Somaliland Separatism Did Not Begin With Siad Barre
And this fact should force a correction to one of the laziest narratives about Somali history.
It is often suggested that northern separatism began exclusively with the atrocities of Mohamed Siad Barre’s regime during the 1980s.
That is historically incomplete.
The brutality of the Barre regime, particularly the devastation inflicted upon northern cities and populations during the late 1980s, profoundly shaped the Somaliland political project that emerged in 1991.
That cannot responsibly be minimized.
But dissatisfaction with the union existed much earlier.
The December 1961 coup proves it.
Barely eighteen months after union, officers from the former Somaliland territory were already prepared to use military force against the newly unified state.
That does not prove that every northerner opposed union. They certainly did not.
Nor does it retroactively validate Somaliland’s later claim to independence.
It establishes something historically more useful: the union encountered serious political and institutional grievances almost immediately, and some northern officers concluded as early as 1961 that those grievances justified attempting to reverse the political order.
Awil was one of them.
That makes his testimony particularly valuable.

The Awil Paradox
And here lies the fascinating contradiction in Ambassador Awil’s political biography.
The young Awil participated in an attempted revolt against the Somali administration in the north.
The older Awil served the Somali Republic as a military officer and ambassador.
Decades later, the Somaliland minister Awil accompanied President Riyale to advise Ethiopia’s prime minister about the government of another man from his military generation — Abdullahi Yusuf.
And today the elder statesman Awil explains Somaliland’s strategic turn toward Israel partly as a consequence of failed political accommodation with Mogadishu.
One man.
More than six decades.
Almost the entire unresolved argument of the Somali Republic compressed into a single political biography.
Union.
Rebellion.
Diplomacy.
Civil war.
Somaliland.
Ethiopia.
Federalism.
Israel.
It would be difficult to invent a more Somali political journey.
But This Is Bigger Than Awil
Mogadishu should not celebrate these revelations too enthusiastically.
The disease exposed by Awil’s testimony is not confined to Somaliland.
Successive Somali governments, opposition groups, federal member states, armed movements and political factions have repeatedly sought foreign leverage against domestic Somali competitors.
Addis Ababa yesterday.
Nairobi tomorrow.
Ankara, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Washington or somewhere else the day after.
The capital changes.
The habit survives.
A Somali politician loses an argument at home and suddenly discovers an urgent diplomatic appointment abroad.
A regional administration quarrels with Mogadishu and begins cultivating foreign patrons.
Mogadishu quarrels with a federal member state and mobilizes international partners against it.
Then everybody returns home and delivers a speech about sovereignty.
Somali sovereignty must be the hardest-working word in the Somali language.
It is invoked immediately before being subcontracted.
The Lesson From Awil’s Testimony
The importance of the Geed Fadhi interview therefore lies beyond whatever embarrassment it causes today’s politicians.
Awil belongs to a disappearing generation of Somali public figures who personally witnessed the Republic’s earliest crises.
Their testimony should be recorded, challenged and preserved.
But oral history is evidence, not holy scripture.
Memories must be compared with memoirs. Memoirs must be checked against contemporary documents. Ethiopian archives should eventually be examined against Somali accounts. Abdullahi Yusuf’s recollections should be placed beside Awil’s. Participants who remain alive should be interviewed independently.
That is how political memory becomes history.
And after applying that standard, the essential findings remain substantial.
The 1961 episode is historically corroborated: Awil participated in the failed northern officers’ coup.
The Meles episode is supported by Awil’s own previously published memoir account: he says he accompanied President Riyale to Addis Ababa and personally advised Meles against Abdullahi Yusuf’s policies while Ethiopian troops were operating in Somalia.  What cannot presently be established is that this meeting constituted a formal conspiracy or that it caused Yusuf’s eventual resignation.
The Hassan Sheikh-Israel proposition is best treated as Awil’s political analysis, not yet as independently proven causation. Somaliland’s search for recognition long predates Hassan Sheikh’s present political confrontation with Hargeisa.
Those corrections do not diminish the story.
They make it stronger.
Because WDM has no need to manufacture an indictment when history has already written one.
For sixty-five years, Somali political actors have struggled with the same fundamental question: when political grievances arise, do we resolve them through Somali institutions, or do we search for an external power capable of defeating our Somali opponent for us?
In 1961, some officers reached for the gun.
Decades later, politicians travelled to Addis Ababa.
Today they travel the world searching for diplomatic recognition, military partnerships and foreign political leverage.
The actors change.
The patrons change.
The flags change.
The instinct survives.
And perhaps that is the most disturbing conclusion emerging from Ambassador Awil’s testimony.
He has not merely told us something about Somaliland, Abdullahi Yusuf or Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.
He has inadvertently narrated one of the enduring failures of Somali politics itself: when reconciliation becomes difficult, the foreign capital becomes easier.
That is not simply Ambassador Awil’s history.
It is Somalia’s unfinished history.
— Warsame Digital Media (WDM)
Commentary and Critical Analysis

A WDM Editorial

There is an old Mudugh expression fit for moments when yesterday has become too embarrassing to defend: “Let us be reborn again.”

It is not an invitation to erase history. It means forgiving past wrongdoing, burying old quarrels, abandoning failed habits and starting afresh from today.

Mudugh badly needs such a rebirth.

Suddenly, almost everything appears to be restarting. Roads. Sanitation. Galkayo airport. Gara’ad Port and its supporting infrastructure. Security. Public safety. Government administration. Projects that should have been ordinary functions of government are being rediscovered with the excitement of archaeological findings.

Welcome back, government.

The full force of the Puntland State administration has descended on Galkayo, headed by President Said Abdullahi Deni. Ministers, officials, commanders, Mudugh representatives and assorted political ornaments are appearing everywhere. Meetings are being held. Instructions are being issued. Roads are being inspected. Security is being discussed. Cameras are clicking.

One could almost believe that Mudugh had just been discovered on the map.

Mudugh Representatives Discover Mudugh

The more uncomfortable spectacle, however, belongs to Mudugh’s own representatives.

For years, the region has produced ministers, parliamentarians, senior officials and political personalities in impressive quantities. If political titles were development projects, Mudugh would resemble Singapore.

Unfortunately, titles do not pave roads.

They do not collect rubbish.

They do not secure neighbourhoods.

They do not stop revenge killings.

They do not modernise an airport.

They do not turn Gara’ad Port into the commercial engine it was built to become.

And they certainly do not substitute for competent representation.

Now, with the President physically present, some Mudugh representatives appear to be showing their political backsides, scrambling to demonstrate achievements that should have been visible long before the presidential convoy arrived. Their less-than-impressive competence is suddenly on public exhibition.

There is something almost comic about officials explaining Mudugh’s problems to a President after spending years occupying offices supposedly created to solve those very problems.

Who exactly were they waiting for?

But Not Everything Was Made in Galkayo

There is, however, another side of this story that cannot honestly be dumped at the feet of Mudugh officials alone.

Some development projects in Puntland have reportedly been caught in the prolonged political and constitutional dispute between Puntland and the Federal Government in Mogadishu. International development resources intended for Puntland have been alleged to have been delayed, frozen or otherwise obstructed as relations between Garowe and Mogadishu deteriorated.

If that is so, Mudugh became collateral damage in somebody else’s political war.

That raises questions neither government should be allowed to escape.

Why should a road in Mudugh become hostage to a constitutional dispute in Mogadishu? Why should sanitation in Galkayo depend upon whether politicians in Garowe and Mogadishu are speaking to each other? Why should ordinary Puntland citizens lose development opportunities because two levels of government cannot agree on federal politics?

Development funds are not political pocket money.

If international donors earmarked resources for Puntland projects, those resources were intended for citizens — not as bargaining chips for whoever happened to occupy Villa Somalia.

But Puntland must answer the other half of the question as well.

Why Was There No Negotiation?

If donor resources earmarked for Puntland were indeed frozen or withheld, what sustained diplomatic and technical effort was undertaken to have them released?

Where were the negotiations?

Where was the international campaign?

Where were the formal representations to donors?

Where was the public accounting showing which projects were affected, how much money was involved, who was withholding it and under what legal or administrative authority?

Political disagreement with Mogadishu does not relieve Puntland of the responsibility to fight for every dollar legitimately intended for its people.

Garowe could maintain its constitutional position against the Mogadishu administration while simultaneously negotiating over development finance. One does not require surrendering the other.

You can quarrel over the Constitution on Monday and negotiate the release of a road-development grant on Tuesday.

That is called government.

If Mogadishu weaponised development funding against Puntland, it should be exposed and challenged. If Puntland allowed frozen funds to remain frozen because political communication had collapsed, that too deserves scrutiny.

The citizen who drives through a pothole does not particularly care which politician won the constitutional argument.

He still drove through the pothole.

Deni Has Also Arrived — Belatedly

President Deni cannot therefore escape the satire merely because Mogadishu may carry part of the responsibility.

His presence and apparent determination to address Galkayo’s accumulated problems are welcome. The mobilisation of the Puntland Government indicates that the President understands the seriousness of the situation and appears prepared to do something about it.

That deserves recognition.

But Mudugh may reasonably ask:

Why now?

Why did roads have to deteriorate so badly before becoming urgent? Why did sanitation become a civic embarrassment? Why did insecurity, revenge killings and armed clan tensions persist before the machinery of government arrived in force? Why has the enormous economic potential surrounding Gara’ad Port not already transformed regional infrastructure planning?

Apparently, Puntland has discovered a revolutionary principle of public administration:

Problems are easier to notice after they become crises.

Still, better a late government than an absent one.

“Let Us Be Reborn Again”

Mudugh does not need another season of blame. It has enough graves, grievances, political rivalries and wasted opportunities already.

So let Mudugh invoke its own wisdom:

Let us be reborn again.

Let the Puntland Government admit what it neglected.

Let Mogadishu answer for any development resources it obstructed.

Let Puntland explain what it did to recover funds allegedly withheld.

Let international donors explain where Puntland’s earmarked allocations went.

Let Mudugh representatives admit where they failed.

Let communities abandon revenge politics.

Let businessmen invest rather than finance political quarrels.

Let elders extinguish conflicts instead of institutionalising them.

Let security forces enforce one law against everybody.

And let President Deni convert this sudden concentration of government attention into permanent institutions rather than another presidential visit followed by disappearing convoys.

Galkayo does not need cosmetic rehabilitation. Mudugh requires roads, sanitation, functioning municipal institutions, a modern airport, secure commercial corridors, effective policing and serious integration of Gara’ad Port into Puntland’s economic future.

Above all, it needs law and order.

Without security, the road leads nowhere. Without public safety, investors leave. Without competent administration, Gara’ad becomes infrastructure surrounded by missed opportunities. Without accountability, today’s grand restart becomes tomorrow’s abandoned project.

Mudugh has paid too much and waited too long.

So yes, forgive yesterday.

Let us be reborn again.

But rebirth means changing behaviour, not merely changing speeches.

President Deni appears finally to be paying attention. Mudugh’s representatives have finally been placed under the uncomfortable spotlight of their own performance. Projects are restarting. Security is receiving attention. Galkayo is again being treated as a strategic Puntland city rather than a permanently postponed problem.

Good.

Now finish the job.

And recover every development dollar belonging to Puntland while you are at it.

Because there is one particularly fitting lesson in this belated awakening:

It is never too late to realise that you were already too late.

— WDM
Commentary and Critical Analysis

An Expired Parliament Elects a Speaker While an Expired Presidency and Cabinet Carry On

A WDM Editorial

Somalia has apparently discovered a constitutional innovation unknown to political science: institutions can expire and still reproduce themselves.

The Federal Parliament’s four-year mandate ran out on April 14, 2026. The President’s term followed a month later. Yet Parliament kept sitting — and on this month elected a new Speaker, Abdulqadir Mohamed Nur Jama, to replace Adan Madobe, who left the chamber after being installed as President of South West State. The Presidency continues issuing decisions. The Cabinet continues governing.

This is not institutional renewal. It is expired institutions attempting to validate one another. That is not a constitutional government. It is political necromancy.

The Mandate Cannot Be Resurrected by a Vote

The question is elementary: if Parliament’s mandate has expired, from where does it derive the authority to elect a new Speaker?

Villa Somalia’s answer is that the mandate was never really gone — that parliament passed constitutional amendments extending both the legislative and presidential terms by a year, to 2027. That claim deserves to be stated plainly, because a fair accounting cannot ignore it. But it does not settle the matter. The amendments were pushed through without the buy-in of federal member states or former presidents, and opposition figures — including former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s Somali Salvation Forum — argue a legislature cannot lawfully extend its own life by voting on itself. Electing a Speaker under a mandate of contested provenance does not cure the legitimacy question. It advertises it.

The Presidency Has Expired Too

Parliament is not alone. The President’s constitutional term, absent the disputed extension, closed in mid-May. That places the continued exercise of presidential authority under the same question. The Cabinet cannot float constitutionally above the institutions from which executive authority derives. If the government’s own extension is what’s keeping the calendar valid, then the entire federal executive’s legitimacy now rests on the same disputed hinge as the Speaker’s chair.

Everyone is nonetheless expected to behave as though nothing constitutionally significant has happened: ministers exercise powers, officials attend ceremonies, motorcades move through Mogadishu, and statements go out with seals and flags.

Expired Institutions Validating Expired Institutions

This is where the Speaker election becomes genuinely troubling. A parliament of disputed mandate elects a leadership; that leadership recognizes the executive; the executive recognizes the parliament. It is a circular-reference machine — you recognize me, I recognize you, therefore Somalia must recognize both of us. But legitimacy cannot be manufactured by officeholders validating one another. A government does not renew itself merely by continuing to govern, and a Speaker does not make a disputed parliament legitimate merely by occupying the chair.

To be fair, there is a counter-case worth naming: some commentators argue that a caretaker legislature filling a leadership vacancy is an act of institutional continuity, not usurpation — that the alternative, a total legislative vacuum, is worse than a procedurally imperfect Speaker election. That argument has some force. But continuity and legitimacy are not the same thing, and conflating them is precisely how “necessity” becomes the permanent excuse for staying in office.

The Dangerous Precedent

If a parliament of a contested mandate can elect its own leadership, what stops it from doing more? Amending fundamental laws. Approving governments. Redesigning elections. Manufacturing a new political calendar indefinitely, one extension at a time. Once expiration carries no practical consequence, constitutional terms stop being law and become polite suggestions — and Somalia, of all countries, knows what happens when political personalities outgrow institutions.

Federalism Pays the Price

Federal member states are expected to respect institutions emanating from Mogadishu, while Mogadishu treats its own mandates as negotiable through unilateral amendment. That arrangement cannot hold. Federalism depends on mutual constitutional confidence; when the centre manufactures authority through contested institutions, member states will keep asking why decisions from those institutions should bind them. That is not an attack on federalism — it is the predictable cost of exhausting federal legitimacy.

Somalia Does Not Need Another Political Fiction

There is still a Parliament building, still MPs, still a Speaker’s chair, still a President, a Cabinet, motorcades and flags. Everything looks wonderfully governmental. What’s missing is an undisputed mandate underneath it.

Somalia needs a lawful, broadly agreed political transition — credible elections and respect for constitutional timelines, negotiated with federal member states and opposition actors, not decreed by amendment. It does not need expired institutions appointing officials, recognizing one another, and asking the Somali people to applaud the exercise as democracy.

The constitutional clock does not stop because politicians dislike what happens when it reaches midnight. If constitutional terms mean anything, they must mean something precisely when those holding power would prefer them not to. Otherwise Somalia is no longer practicing government by mandate — it has invented something easier: rule until further notice.

Federalism, Confederation, and the Risks of Somalia’s Centralizing Drift
By Ismail H. Warsame, MSc, PhD Candidate
Warsame Digital Media (WDM)

Executive Summary

Puntland’s constitutional relationship with Somalia has entered a critical phase.

The debate is no longer confined to whether Puntland should remain within a federal Somalia. Three possible futures are increasingly visible: renewed and enforceable federalism, a looser confederal arrangement, or eventual separation if the federal compact becomes permanently incapable of protecting constituent-state autonomy.

Puntland was not established in 1998 as a conventional separatist project. Its political architecture anticipated participation in a reconstructed Somali state based upon federalism. The present estrangement therefore reflects accumulated distrust rather than an original rejection of Somali unity.

That distrust has been reinforced by repeated centre–state confrontations involving not only Puntland but also Jubaland and South West State. These include Puntland’s break with Mogadishu in 2013; the South West election and Mukhtar Robow crisis in 2018; federal military deployment in Gedo during the Jubaland dispute; the 2024 constitutional rupture; Jubaland’s 2024 electoral crisis and armed confrontation at Ras Kamboni; Puntland’s largely self-directed Calmiskaad campaign against Islamic State; South West State’s 2026 rupture with Mogadishu and subsequent federal military intervention in Baidoa; allegations concerning the withholding or redirection of Puntland development funds; and the August 2026 Galkayo confrontation.

The situation has been further complicated by controversy over the March 2026 constitutional amendments, which Reuters reported could extend the presidential term from four to five years and delay elections. The precise application to the incumbent remains contested, but the issue raises a wider legitimacy problem: incumbent institutions appear to have participated in changing constitutional rules that may prolong their own tenure.

The Federal Government nevertheless has legitimate counterarguments. Somalia is one internationally recognized sovereign state. Foreign affairs, national defence, citizenship and immigration, and monetary policy are constitutionally federal responsibilities. Mogadishu must also manage international debt, donor accountability, national security coordination, and constitutional reform. Puntland cannot invoke federalism selectively while disregarding genuine federal powers.

The central policy challenge is therefore not to choose between a powerless centre and an all-powerful one.

Somalia requires a functionally strong but constitutionally limited Federal Government, matched by meaningful and protected Federal Member State autonomy.

Without such a settlement, the political logic is likely to move progressively from federalism toward confederation and, eventually, separation.

---

The Policy Problem

Somalia has never fully resolved whether its federation is a negotiated partnership among constitutionally protected constituent states or a centrally led state in which regional governments exercise delegated authority.

The 2012 Provisional Constitution attempted to bridge this contradiction.

Article 54 reserves foreign affairs, national defence, citizenship and immigration, and monetary policy to the Federal Government, while requiring the remaining allocation of powers and resources to be negotiated and agreed upon between the centre and the Federal Member States.[1]

Article 53 further requires federal consultation with Member States in major international negotiations affecting their interests.[2]

The constitutional principle is therefore clear:

Somalia is neither a unitary state with decentralized provinces nor a confederation of sovereign republics.

Its stability depends upon maintaining the middle ground.

That middle ground is weakening.

---

Why Puntland Matters

Puntland predates Somalia’s current federal architecture.

It established functioning political and security institutions in 1998 while Somalia still lacked an effective national government. Its founding project was based on regional self-government combined with participation in a future federal Somalia.[3]

Puntland therefore does not view its autonomy as a privilege granted by Mogadishu.

It regards it as part of the constitutional bargain upon which national reconstruction was built.

This historical understanding helps explain why Puntland reacts strongly when federal authorities appear to expand powers that Garowe believes were never constitutionally transferred to the centre.

---

Evidence of a Wider Federal Crisis

The problem extends beyond Puntland.

South West State, 2018

The arrest of Mukhtar Robow during the South West presidential contest and the lethal unrest that followed created a lasting perception that federal power could influence regional electoral outcomes. Human Rights Watch, citing UN findings, reported that at least fifteen protesters were killed following Robow’s arrest.[4]

Jubaland and Gedo

The dispute over Ahmed Mohamed Islam Madobe’s 2019 reelection developed into a confrontation over Gedo involving federal troop deployments. International Crisis Group later described the federal approach as overreach and linked troop withdrawal to efforts to restore political confidence.[5]

Puntland, 2024

After Parliament approved major constitutional amendments in March 2024, Puntland announced that it would no longer recognize federal institutions until an agreed constitutional settlement was restored.[6]

Jubaland and Ras Kamboni, 2024

The dispute over Jubaland’s 2024 election escalated into competing claims of legitimacy and armed confrontation. Later analysis attributed the immediate opening attack at Ras Kamboni to Jubaland forces, illustrating that federal-state conflict cannot credibly be reduced to a simple narrative of one-sided aggression.[7]

South West State, 2026

South West severed relations with the Federal Government in March 2026. Less than two weeks later, federal troops entered Baidoa and the regional president resigned.[8]

Taken together, these incidents indicate a recurring structural problem rather than a uniquely Puntland grievance.

---

The Calmiskaad Test

Puntland’s campaign against Islamic State in the Calmiskaad mountains has become an important test of the federal compact.

Reuters reported in February 2025 that Puntland forces had recaptured approximately 250 square kilometres and fifty ISIS positions.[9]

Puntland Information Minister Mohammed Aided stated that there was no operational coordination with the Federal Government and appealed for additional international support.[10]

The Federal Government rejected the implication that it was disengaged. Federal Information Minister Daud Aweis said Mogadishu maintained security engagement with Puntland and emphasized the need for a unified national counterterrorism strategy.[11]

The competing claims expose the core problem.

Puntland argues:

It was forced to act independently because the centre failed to provide meaningful operational support.

Mogadishu argues:

Independent regional military structures themselves prevent coherent national security coordination.

Both arguments point toward the same policy conclusion:

Somalia urgently needs an agreed federal security architecture.

---

The Galkayo Warning

The August 2026 confrontation in Galkayo added another layer of mistrust.

Puntland forces seized a camp held by federally aligned forces following fighting in the divided city. Puntland accused Mogadishu of supporting armed formations intended to destabilize Puntland.

Public reporting confirms the fighting and the existence of federal-aligned forces, but the precise intent attributed to Mogadishu remains contested.

This distinction matters.

A policy analysis should not present allegation as established fact.

But the episode still exposes a serious institutional weakness.

Where federal-aligned armed formations operate inside a Federal Member State during an acute political dispute, their legal mandate, chain of command, financing, and mission should be transparent.

Without such clarity, legitimate federal security activity becomes politically indistinguishable from intervention.

---

Development Finance and Fiscal Distrust

Puntland has repeatedly alleged that international development funds intended for the State have been delayed, withheld, or redirected because of political disagreement with Mogadishu.

Independent U4 research records repeated allegations of politically motivated diversion or withholding of aid involving Puntland, while also cautioning that available evidence does not conclusively establish every claim.[12]

The Federal Government has a legitimate counter-case.

International finance is often provided to the Federal Republic of Somalia, and Mogadishu bears fiduciary responsibilities involving auditing, procurement, donor compliance, debt sustainability, and financial reporting.

Federal records also show substantial transfers to Federal Member States generally.[13]

The policy problem is therefore not simply whether Mogadishu should have a role.

It should.

The problem is whether the system is sufficiently rule-based to prevent both actual political discrimination and persistent suspicion of political discrimination.

---

The Mandate Controversy

The March 2026 constitutional amendments further complicated the crisis.

Reuters reported that the changes could extend the presidential term from four to five years and delay elections originally expected in May 2026.[14]

The legal application to the incumbent remained contested.

This qualification is important.

The issue should not be described simplistically as an uncontested personal term extension.

But the constitutional concern is substantial.

Incumbent institutions participated in adopting rules that may prolong their own tenure.

This raises a basic democratic principle:

Political institutions should not possess unrestricted power to alter the expiry of the mandate from which their authority derives.

Mogadishu can reasonably argue that an electoral transition requires time for voter registration, electoral legislation, constituency design, political-party organization, security, and administration.

But parliamentary approval alone does not remove the conflict of interest where legislators and executives benefit directly from the new timetable.

For Puntland, the issue deepens an existing legitimacy dispute.

Garowe already rejected the constitutional process.

The same amended order is now being invoked to sustain federal authority over Member States that dispute its legitimacy.

---

Mogadishu’s Strongest Counter-Case

Puntland’s critique must be balanced against legitimate federal concerns.

Somalia cannot function if each Federal Member State independently determines national foreign policy, military relationships, citizenship, currency, and external diplomatic relations.

Article 54 expressly assigns several of these areas to Mogadishu.

The Federal Government is also correct that:

• national forces must possess real operational capacity;
• international creditors require one sovereign counterpart;
• foreign governments should not be able to construct competing state-level diplomatic systems inside Somalia;
• Puntland cannot possess an automatic veto over every constitutional reform;
• and the federation cannot gradually become a confederation simply because individual states choose to behave as sovereign entities.

These concerns are not merely excuses for centralization.

They are genuine problems of national statehood.

---

Where the Federal Case Stops

Legitimate federal authority nevertheless has constitutional limits.

Foreign affairs cannot become a pretext for ignoring Article 53 consultation requirements.

National defence cannot become a universal justification for military intervention during regional political disputes.

Fiscal oversight cannot become political punishment.

Constitutional reform cannot allow the centre alone to redefine the powers of the constituent states.

Universal suffrage cannot substitute for federal agreement.

And parliamentary majorities cannot be permitted to vote federalism itself out of existence.

The challenge is therefore to distinguish federal capacity from federal domination.

---

Strategic Options for Puntland

Puntland now faces three broad constitutional paths.

1. Reconstructed Federalism

This remains the least disruptive and potentially most viable option.

It would require:

clear allocation of powers;

rule-based fiscal federalism;

constitutional protection of state autonomy;

agreed security arrangements;

limits on unilateral federal troop deployments;

transparent resource-sharing;

and an independent constitutional mechanism capable of binding both Mogadishu and Federal Member States.

2. Confederation

If trust in conventional federalism has deteriorated beyond repair, a confederal arrangement could preserve Somali political unity while shifting more authority to constituent states.

Common institutions could retain narrowly agreed functions such as:

external defence;

currency;

citizenship;

selected foreign affairs;

interstate commerce;

international debt;

and maritime coordination.

Most domestic authority would remain with the states.

3. Separation

Separation remains the most consequential option and should not be romanticized.

It would raise difficult questions involving:

international recognition;

citizenship;

borders;

public debt;

currency;

trade;

security;

airspace;

maritime jurisdiction;

and succession to federal assets and obligations.

But its political appeal will grow if both genuine federalism and confederal accommodation are foreclosed.

---

Policy Recommendations

1. Establish a Binding Federal Dispute Mechanism

Somalia urgently requires an independent constitutional court or equivalent institution capable of adjudicating centre–state disputes.

Neither Puntland nor Mogadishu should be judge in its own cause.

2. Negotiate a Federal Security Compact

The Federal Government and Member States should agree rules governing:

federal troop deployment;

state consultation;

regional forces;

joint command;

counterterrorism operations;

weapons transfers;

and political neutrality of security institutions.

3. Insulate Development Finance from Political Conflict

Federal-state transfers should be formula-based, transparent, audited, and technically conditioned.

Citizens should not lose development projects because political relations collapse.

4. Establish Special Amendment Rules for Federal Questions

Constitutional provisions affecting Member State powers should require a higher threshold than an ordinary parliamentary majority.

The system must balance national decision-making with meaningful constituent-state consent.

5. Resolve the Mandate Controversy Transparently

Federal authorities should provide a clear, authoritative, and independently reviewable legal explanation of:

the current presidential term;

the applicability of the March 2026 amendments to the incumbent;

the precise election timetable;

and the transitional legal basis for any continuation beyond the original four-year cycle.

Ambiguity over the expiry of national political authority is itself constitutionally destabilizing.

6. Create a Puntland Constitutional Futures Commission

Puntland should establish an independent commission to examine federalism, confederation, and separation.

Its purpose should be analysis, not predetermined advocacy.

7. Strengthen Puntland’s Own Constitutional Governance

Puntland’s case for autonomy will remain strongest when it demonstrates rule of law, judicial independence, accountable security institutions, transparent finance, political pluralism, and effective local government.

Autonomy must produce better governance, not simply more localized power.

---

Historical Warning: Ethiopia and Eritrea

The Ethiopia–Eritrea federation of 1952–1962 offers a limited but relevant institutional warning.

UN General Assembly Resolution 390(V) established Eritrea as an autonomous unit federated with Ethiopia.[15]

Over the following decade, Eritrean autonomy was progressively weakened, and Ethiopia dissolved the federation in 1962.

The legal and historical circumstances differ profoundly from Puntland.

The lesson is not that Puntland is destined to follow Eritrea.

The lesson is institutional:

When a political union depends upon protected autonomy, dismantling that autonomy can radicalize rather than extinguish demands for self-government.

The centre may centralize in order to prevent fragmentation.

The periphery interprets centralization as proof that autonomy cannot be trusted.

Federalists become confederalists.

Confederalists may become separatists.

That is the danger Somalia should avoid.

---

Conclusion

Puntland’s constitutional debate now reflects five interconnected crises:

federal authority, constitutional amendment, security relations, fiscal federalism, and democratic mandate.

Mogadishu possesses legitimate national powers.

Puntland possesses legitimate constitutional autonomy.

The failure lies in Somalia’s inability to establish trusted institutions defining the boundary between them.

The policy objective should therefore not be victory for Garowe over Mogadishu or Mogadishu over Garowe.

It should be a federal settlement in which neither can constitutionally dominate the other.

The central proposition is simple:

Somalia requires a real Federal Government—and real Federal Member States.

If genuine federalism is restored, Puntland has powerful reasons to remain committed to Somali unity.

If federalism becomes merely nominal, confederation becomes rational.

If both federalism and confederal accommodation fail, separation will inevitably become more politically attractive.

The greatest danger to Somali unity may therefore not come from those demanding autonomy.

It may come from political institutions that, in the name of strengthening the state, progressively destroy the constitutional bargain that makes the state worth belonging to.

---

Notes

1. Reuters, “Somali Parliament Backs Constitutional Changes That Could Extend President’s Term,” March 5, 2026.

2. Federal Republic of Somalia, Provisional Constitution of the Federal Republic of Somalia (Mogadishu, 2012), art. 54.

3. Ibid., art. 53.

4. Reuters, “Somalia’s South West State Says It Has Severed Ties with the Federal Government,” March 17, 2026.

5. Human Rights Watch, “Somalia,” World Report 2020 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2020).

6. Reuters, “Somalia’s Puntland Refuses to Recognise Federal Government after Disputed Constitutional Changes,” March 31, 2024.

7. International Crisis Group, Electoral Showdown in Somalia: Averting Another Round of Turmoil, Africa Briefing no. 208, 2025.

8. Reuters, “Somali Army Takes Control of Strategic City, Regional Leader Resigns,” March 30, 2026.

9. Reuters, “Puntland Offensive Deals Blow to Islamic State in Somalia,” February 7, 2025.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, Aid Diversion and Corruption in Somalia (Bergen: U4, 2026).

13. Federal Government of Somalia, Ministry of Finance, 2024 End Year Budget Performance Report (Mogadishu, 2025).

14. Reuters, “Somali Parliament Backs Constitutional Changes That Could Extend President’s Term,” March 5, 2026.

15. United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 390 A (V), “Eritrea,” December 2, 1950.

---

Selected Bibliography

Federal Government of Somalia, Ministry of Finance. 2024 End Year Budget Performance Report. Mogadishu, 2025.

Federal Republic of Somalia. Provisional Constitution of the Federal Republic of Somalia. Mogadishu, 2012.

Human Rights Watch. “Somalia.” World Report 2020. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2020.

International Crisis Group. Electoral Showdown in Somalia: Averting Another Round of Turmoil. Africa Briefing No. 208. Brussels, 2025.

Puntland Development Research Centre and Interpeace. A Bottom-Up Approach to Peace and Statebuilding: Lessons from the Somali Experience. Garowe, 2008.

Reuters. “Puntland Offensive Deals Blow to Islamic State in Somalia.” February 7, 2025.

———. “Somalia’s Puntland Refuses to Recognise Federal Government after Disputed Constitutional Changes.” March 31, 2024.

———. “Somali Parliament Backs Constitutional Changes That Could Extend President’s Term.” March 5, 2026.

———. “Somalia’s South West State Says It Has Severed Ties with the Federal Government.” March 17, 2026.

———. “Somali Army Takes Control of Strategic City, Regional Leader Resigns.” March 30, 2026.

U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre. Aid Diversion and Corruption in Somalia. Bergen, 2026.

United Nations General Assembly. Resolution 390 A (V), “Eritrea.” December 2, 1950.

Everybody Owns the Conflict. Nobody Owns the City.

A WDM Editorial

Who owns Galkayo?

The people who permanently live there, build houses, establish businesses, educate their children, pay taxes and invest their savings there?

Or an unlimited clan constituency stretching across Mudug and into the Somali State of Ethiopia, ready to claim Galkayo whenever genealogy calls?

That question lies at the heart of the city’s troubles.

Galkayo has grown enormously. Buildings rise. Land changes hands. Vehicles crowd inadequate streets. Businesses struggle forward. Yet civic ownership has not kept pace with physical expansion.

The result is a peculiar urban tragedy: a city claimed by everybody and properly owned by nobody.

Everybody Owns the Conflict

Galkayo sits inside a much larger clan geography.

Reer Mahad, Reer Xirsi, Reer Khalaf, Reer Bicidyahan, Leelkase and many other communities have historical, pastoral, family and commercial connections extending across Mudug and into Ethiopia’s Somali Region.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this movement. It is part of the history of the region.

The problem begins when genealogy becomes a municipal title deed.

When trouble erupts, people who may ordinarily live far from Galkayo suddenly become its most energetic “stakeholders.” Telephones ring. Relatives mobilise. Elders meet. Money is collected. Armed men appear. An individual dispute becomes a subclan affair.

But when Galkayo floods, where are all these owners?

When drainage fails?

When roads deteriorate?

When garbage accumulates?

When businesses need security?

When the municipality needs revenue?

Suddenly responsibility belongs to somebody else.

Everybody owns the conflict. Nobody owns the drainage.

That is not urban citizenship.

Revenge Has Become an Urban Disease

Nothing exposes Galkayo’s predicament more clearly than recurrent clan revenge killings and the permanent tension surrounding them.

One man kills another. Instead of pursuing the alleged murderer through police and courts, responsibility travels through genealogy. An innocent person sharing the offender’s lineage may become the next target.

Then another killing follows.

Another clan mobilises.

Another reconciliation meeting is organised.

Another temporary calm is declared.

Everybody waits for the next corpse.

This is not justice. It is the privatisation of criminal law by clan.

Crime must belong to the criminal.

If Mohamed kills Ahmed, arrest Mohamed. Mohamed’s cousin did not commit the murder. Neither did his businessman uncle, his distant relative or his subclan.

Until this elementary principle becomes non-negotiable, Galkayo will remain hostage to revenge.

And permanent tension has consequences. Investors hesitate. Businesses relocate. Professionals leave. Families with alternatives move elsewhere.

Insecurity becomes an invisible tax on everybody who remains.

One City, Two Administrations

On top of everything else, Galkayo is divided.

Northern Galkayo is administered by Puntland. Southern Galkayo is administered by Galmudug. The populations of the two sides have historically been associated with rival clan constituencies.

Yet Galkayo remains one urban organism.

Floodwater does not recognise Puntland and Galmudug.

Neither does sewage.

Neither does traffic.

Neither does commerce.

Neither does crime.

The city is geographically one, economically intertwined and socially connected, but administratively divided.

That makes every ordinary urban problem potentially political.

A murder can become an inter-administration problem. A land dispute can become a clan confrontation. A security incident can acquire political meaning. A criminal can cross from one jurisdiction to another inside the same city.

Two administrations may remain. But there cannot be two unrelated Galkayos.

Puntland and Galmudug must have permanent working arrangements on policing, criminal suspects, roads, drainage, land disputes, emergency services and commerce.

The city cannot continue to be administered as two neighbouring clan camps.

There Was Another Galkayo

This is perhaps the saddest part of the story.

There was a time when Galkayo represented something very different.

In the 1960s, Galkayo was a centre of learning in northeastern Somalia. Families from across the wider Majeerteen regions sent their children there to be educated.

Going to Galkayo meant opportunity.

It meant schooling.

It meant exposure to a growing urban society.

It meant preparation for a professional future.

Consider the reversal.

Parents once sent their children to Galkayo for their future. Today, too many people of Galkayo origin have moved elsewhere to secure theirs.

Professionals have left.

Prominent personalities have left.

Established families have relocated.

Businesses increasingly look elsewhere when deciding where to put their capital.

Garowe and other urban centres have absorbed people, investment and professional talent that Galkayo should have retained.

That should worry every clan claiming ownership of the city.

A city does not decline only when its buildings collapse.

A city declines when its best people leave.

When a doctor leaves, Galkayo loses skills.

When a teacher leaves, it loses knowledge.

When an entrepreneur relocates, it loses jobs and capital.

When prominent families decide that another city offers greater security and predictability, Galkayo loses something even harder to replace: confidence.

And there lies the bitter contradiction.

A clan may claim Galkayo forever while its professionals abandon it.

A subclan may fight over territory while its businessmen move their money elsewhere.

Politicians may endlessly invoke deegaan while the people capable of developing that deegaan establish their futures somewhere safer.

That is possession without responsibility.

A City Is Not a Deegaan

Galkayo’s underlying problem is the collision between two different ideas of ownership.

Pastoral society was organised around mobility, water, pasture, kinship and territorial access. It was remarkably adapted to its environment.

But a city operates differently.

A camel can move when water disappears.

A hospital cannot.

A pastoral family can relocate with livestock.

A hotel cannot.

A herd can cross the Ethiopian border.

A drainage system cannot.

A businessman cannot put his warehouse on a camel whenever two subclans exchange gunfire.

Urban life requires permanence.

Permanence creates responsibility.

The family that has built a permanent house has something to protect.

The businessman who has invested his savings has something to protect.

The professional raising children there has something to protect.

The property owner needs functioning roads, policing, drainage, electricity and courts tomorrow, next year and twenty years from now.

That resident has a different relationship with Galkayo from somebody whose interest in the city becomes activated mainly when genealogy calls.

Resident Ownership Must Replace Genealogical Ownership

This does not mean excluding surrounding communities.

Galkayo should remain the commercial centre of a vast hinterland. People from Mudug, neighbouring regions and across the Ethiopian border should trade there, invest there, study there, seek medical treatment there and participate fully in its economy.

But access is not ownership.

Genealogy is not municipal citizenship.

No clan—Reer Mahad, Reer Xirsi, Reer Khalaf, Reer Bicidyahan, Leelkase or anybody else—holds an ancestral title deed to a modern city.

The same principle must apply equally to everyone.

The permanent resident must come first.

Not because of clan.

Because he lives there.

Because she invests there.

Because their children grow up there.

Because they pay the price when Galkayo burns.

Galkayo Must Decide

Concrete buildings alone will not transform Galkayo into a modern city.

Urbanisation requires law.

It requires courts.

It requires professional policing.

It requires disarmament.

It requires municipal taxation.

It requires drainage, sanitation, roads and urban planning.

It requires Puntland and Galmudug to cooperate where the interests of the city demand it.

Above all, it requires a new understanding of ownership.

The clan hinterland cannot periodically take political possession of Galkayo whenever blood is spilled and disappear when the drainage bill arrives.

Permanent residents cannot continue financing a city whose peace can be commandeered by people with little permanent stake in its future.

The test of Galkayo’s recovery is therefore simple.

Are professionals returning?

Are prominent families choosing Galkayo again?

Are businesses bringing capital into the city instead of moving it out?

Are parents confident enough to send their children there for education?

Do young graduates see their future in Galkayo?

The Galkayo of the 1960s attracted young minds from across northeastern Somalia. Today’s Galkayo has universities, hospitals, telecommunications, an airport, diaspora capital and commercial opportunities that generation could scarcely have imagined.

It should be flourishing.

Instead, the city risks becoming physically bigger while losing the very people needed to make it better.

Galkayo must choose.

It can remain a collection of clan territories with concrete buildings.

Or it can become a city.

Everybody cannot own Galkayo when there is a fight and disappear when there is a bill.

The people who stay, build, invest, work, educate their children and accept the same law must become the real civic owners of Galkayo.

The city does not merely need to stop killing its people.

It must stop driving them away.

Division Invites External Threats

Galkayo’s endless subclan rivalry carries another dangerous price: it leaves the city vulnerable to external enemies. Extremists and outside militias prosper where local communities are divided, security forces are distracted and clan grievances can be exploited. Galkayo has experienced this repeatedly—external militia incursions and occupation, terrorist violence and targeted killings that robbed the city of some of its finest professionals and public figures.

The lesson is written in blood.

A city fighting itself cannot effectively defend itself. Revenge killings and subclan rivalry weaken Galkayo from within and leave the door open to forces with far greater designs upon it. Internal peace, therefore, is not merely desirable; it is Galkayo’s first line of defence.

A WDM Editorial — Commentary and Critical Analysis

The Leader of SSC-Khatumo, Abdulkadir Ahmed Aw-Ali Firdhiye, has reportedly travelled to Nairobi to meet representatives of the international community.

There is nothing objectionable about that. He should go. He should explain the political aspirations of the communities he represents and seek development assistance, humanitarian support, security cooperation and diplomatic understanding.

But Nairobi may teach Firdhiye something that political enthusiasm in Laascaanood and support from Mogadishu cannot teach quickly enough: the international diplomacy surrounding Sool, Sanaag and Cayn did not begin with SSC-Khaatumo, nor with Firdhiye himself.

He is entering an old diplomatic battlefield—one on which Puntland has operated for nearly three decades.

The files are still there.

Before SSC-Khaatumo

One of the most persistent weaknesses in Somali political debate is the assumption that history begins when the latest political organisation is formed.

It does not.

The dispute over Sool, Sanaag and Cayn predates SSC-Khaatumo by decades. It became particularly visible after Puntland was established in 1998 and asserted a political claim over territories that Somaliland also regarded as falling within its boundaries. Contemporary assessments continue to describe Sool and parts of Sanaag as disputed between Somaliland and Puntland, while also recognising SSC-Khaatumo as a distinct political actor that emerged from the conflict around Laascaanood.

Puntland’s position was not merely that another administration had drawn a competing map. Its deeper argument was that colonial borders could not, by themselves, determine the political future of communities whose inhabitants possessed their own political affiliations, historical relationships and views on Somali unity.

Somaliland, by contrast, has generally grounded its territorial claim in the borders of the former British Somaliland Protectorate and in its argument that it restored the sovereignty it possessed at independence in 1960.

That disagreement did not emerge yesterday. It was already present during the earliest years of Puntland’s political formation.

Abdullahi Yusuf and Egal

A 2019 personal reflection by Ismail Haji Warsame, a former chief of staff in the Puntland presidency, describes an important but insufficiently remembered chapter in early Puntland–Somaliland diplomacy.

According to Warsame’s account, during the late 1990s—when southern Somalia lacked an effective central authority—Puntland leaders sought direct discussions with Somaliland. The principal interlocutors were Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, Puntland’s founding president, and Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, Somaliland’s president and one of Somalia’s most experienced political figure.

Warsame recalls that letters were exchanged and trusted envoys travelled discreetly between Garowe and Hargeisa. The purpose, he maintains, was not to prepare for war but to explore a political settlement.

The reported proposal sought to accommodate Somaliland’s desire for substantial self-government within a reconstructed federal Somalia. That history complicates the claim that Puntland’s relationship with Somaliland was always defined exclusively by territorial confrontation.

Puntland was not only contesting a map. It was also exploring a constitutional and political framework for resolving the Somaliland question.

That initiative ultimately failed. But failure does not erase the attempt.

A Proposed Compromise

Warsame’s account describes the scale of the proposed compromise as remarkable by today’s standards. It states that Puntland considered a rotating presidency between Puntland and Somaliland, with Egal taking the first term.

A second option reportedly involved supporting Egal’s return to Somali national politics while allowing Somaliland to become the first federal state within a renewed Somali constitutional order.

The feasibility of these proposals can reasonably be questioned. Nevertheless, they demonstrate that Puntland was investing political capital in a negotiated settlement before Somalia’s current federal political class had developed a consistent policy on Somaliland.

The account also places the unresolved status of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn at the centre of those discussions.

Let the People Decide

According to Warsame’s recollection, one proposed solution was an internationally observed referendum through which the inhabitants of the disputed territories could determine their political future.

The principle was straightforward: neither Garowe nor Hargeisa should impose a permanent political arrangement on communities that rejected it. The people should decide, and the result should be respected.

This position was not based on conquering Sool or imposing Puntland’s authority over Laascaanood. Nor did it accept Somaliland’s assertion that colonial boundaries alone settled the matter.

It was an argument based on consent.

A second possibility was that Puntland and Somaliland could enter the same federal Somali framework, making their territorial competition less politically consequential. Under such an arrangement, both administrations could retain substantial local authority while sharing a broader constitutional structure.

That was the road Puntland attempted to travel. It failed, but the historical record should not be rewritten as though it never existed.

The 2001 Referendum

The diplomatic opening eventually collapsed. A major turning point was Somaliland’s constitutional referendum of 31 May 2001.

The referendum was approved overwhelmingly across Somaliland, but claims about participation in Sool, Sanaag and Cayn—particularly the assertion that large sections of the population boycotted the process—should be presented cautiously and supported with region-specific evidence. The general referendum results alone do not establish the extent or political meaning of non-participation in every district.

From Puntland’s perspective, however, the referendum reinforced Somaliland’s territorial and constitutional claims. It transformed what might have remained a negotiable political position into a claim increasingly presented in Hargeisa as constitutionally settled.

Puntland rejected that conclusion. Over time, so did significant sections of the population in Sool and other disputed areas.

The disagreement moved from diplomatic correspondence to military confrontation, from conference rooms to checkpoints, and from constitutional argument to bloodshed. The conflict around Laascaanood in 2023 was therefore not an isolated event but the latest and most destructive phase of a long-running dispute.

The Diplomatic Burden

This is the part Firdhiye may soon discover.

For years, Puntland confronted an international diplomatic environment that often found Somaliland’s narrative easier to summarise. Somaliland’s argument could be presented in a few sentences: British Somaliland became independent in June 1960, united with the former Italian-administered Somalia, experienced a failed union, and later sought to restore its independence within its former colonial boundaries.

Puntland’s counterargument was more difficult to communicate. It required diplomats to consider several competing principles at once:

• Colonial borders do not automatically settle the political preferences of every community living within them.
• Significant populations in Sool, Sanaag and Cayn have opposed incorporation into Somaliland.
• Clan geography matters politically but should not be confused with the full meaning of citizenship.
• Somali unionism remains an important political force.
• Self-determination is being claimed by more than one movement.

International actors often prefer clear maps to complicated political realities. Puntland spent years trying to explain why the map alone could not resolve the dispute.

It lobbied diplomats, maintained administrations, deployed security forces, challenged Somaliland’s claims and absorbed political and military setbacks. Its efforts were not always successful, and its administration in parts of the SSC territories was often criticised as weak or unresponsive.

Those failures should be acknowledged. Local grievances accumulated, relations with community leaders deteriorated and Garowe did not always govern the region with the political sensitivity required.

But institutional failure in one period does not cancel historical contribution in another.

One may criticise Puntland today without pretending that it was absent yesterday.

Where Is Mogadishu?

This is why Firdhiye’s Nairobi mission deserves attention.

International diplomacy does not move at the speed of Somali political change. Governments retain files. Embassies preserve institutional memory. International organisations use inherited terminology and maps. Diplomats rely on briefing notes prepared by predecessors.

For years, international actors described Sool and related areas as disputed between Somaliland and Puntland. SSC-Khaatumo has had to persuade them to recognise a newer political reality—one shaped by the 2023 conflict, the expulsion of Somaliland forces from Laascaanood and the Federal Government’s subsequent recognition of the administration.

But Firdhiye is not facing the same diplomatic circumstances that confronted Abdullahi Yusuf in the late 1990s. He has, at least formally, a Federal Government that has recognised SSC-Khaatumo and subsequently supported its transition into a federal member state.

That raises the central question: where is Mogadishu?

If the Federal Government recognises the North-East State as part of Somalia’s federal architecture, why should Firdhiye be left to make the case largely alone by himself?

Why should SSC-Khaatumo have to reinvent a diplomatic effort that the Federal Government claims to support?

Make Mogadishu Carry the File

SSC leaders should tell the Federal Government plainly:

You recognised us. Now advocate for us.

That advocacy should extend beyond press conferences in Villa Somalia. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should prepare and circulate diplomatic briefs. Somali embassies should explain the constitutional and political case. Somalia’s mission to the United Nations should present the government’s position, while Mogadishu should engage the African Union, IGAD, the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and other international partners.

Federal officials should explain why the political preferences of SSC communities cannot be overridden by Somaliland’s unilateral claim to the entire territory of the former British Protectorate.

That is what federal recognition should mean.

Otherwise, what has SSC gained by exchanging a difficult relationship with Garowe for political dependence on Mogadishu?

Flags, titles, photographs and delegations are inexpensive. Diplomatic protection is costly.

Puntland carried that diplomatic burden for years. If Mogadishu now claims SSC-Khaatumo as part of its federal political architecture, it should also carry the international file.

Do Not Rewrite the Past

SSC-Khaatumo does not need to deny Puntland’s historical role in order to assert its present political autonomy.

The two positions are compatible:

SSC communities may say that they have chosen a different administrative arrangement, while also acknowledging that Puntland opposed their involuntary incorporation into Somaliland.

One proposition does not cancel the other.

Puntland may no longer administer Laascaanood, but that does not erase its earlier negotiations with Somaliland, its advocacy of a referendum, its rejection of Somaliland’s territorial assumptions or the resources it invested in the dispute.

At the same time, Puntland should not interpret historical involvement as permanent ownership of SSC. Historical contribution does not confer an enduring political title over population that no longer wish to be governed by Garowe.

If Puntland once argued that the people of Sool should determine their political future, it must remain intellectually consistent when those people exercise political agency in ways it dislikes.

That is the price of principle.

Neighbours Outlast Patrons

Firdhiye should also remember that Mogadishu is a political relationship, while Puntland is a neighbour.

Governments change. Presidents leave office. Alliances collapse. Federal coalitions become opposition blocs. In Somali politics, today’s patron can quickly become tomorrow’s adversary.

But Laascaanood will remain where it is, and Garowe will remain where it is. The communities will remain connected by trade, family, geography and shared security concerns. Families will continue to cross administrative boundaries that politicians sometimes treat as though they were natural geological formations.

Responsible leadership in Garowe and Laascaanood should therefore resist turning political disagreement into permanent strategic hostility.

There is too much shared history—and too much shared geography—to make that wise.

Nairobi Has a Long Memory

Firdhiye should go to Nairobi. He should knock on every diplomatic door and make the strongest possible case for the North-East State of Somalia.

But when diplomats consult their files, he should understand what they are likely to find: the competing claims of Somaliland and Puntland, the history of negotiations between Abdullahi Yusuf and Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, the reported proposals for federal accommodation, the proposed referendum for Sool, Sanaag and Cayn, the 2001 Somaliland constitutional referendum and years of diplomatic and security assessments describing the territories as disputed.

The lesson is unavoidable:

Firdhiye is not beginning the diplomatic struggle over Sool. He is inheriting it.

SSC-Khaatumo—or, in the current constitutional terminology, the North-East State—has every right to pursue its own political future. But political wisdom requires acknowledging those who cleared part of the path before it arrived.

And if Mogadishu now claims the North-East State as part of Somalia’s federal architecture, Firdhiye’s most important diplomatic conversation may not ultimately be with the international community in Nairobi.

It may be with Villa Somalia:

You recognised us.
You supported us.
Now defend us internationally.

Anything less would leave Laascaanood repeating, at enormous cost, a diplomatic struggle that Puntland has already spent decades fighting.

---

Editorial Note on Sources

This editorial draws particularly on Ismail Haji Warsame’s “Self-governance Options for Somaliland,” published by WardheerNews and subsequently reproduced by Warsame Policy & Media Network on 22 May 2019.

The article presents Warsame’s personal recollections, as a former chief of staff in the Puntland presidency, of late-1990s contacts between Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim Egal. It describes exchanges through trusted envoys, a reported proposal for a rotating presidency, an alternative proposal involving Egal’s return to Somali national leadership, and Puntland’s reported advocacy of an internationally observed referendum for Sool, Sanaag and Cayn.

Because these claims are based substantially on a participant’s recollection, they should be treated as an important primary-source political account—not as a substitute for independent archival corroboration.

Federalism, Confederation, Separation, and the Contest over the Somali Federal Compact

By Ismail H. Warsame, MSc, PhD Candidate
Warsame Digital Media (WDM)

---

Abstract

Puntland State confronts an increasingly consequential constitutional question: whether its long-term political interests remain best protected within the existing Somali federation, through a substantially looser confederal arrangement, or ultimately through political separation should federalism cease to provide meaningful protection for constituent-state autonomy.

This debate did not originate in a traditional Puntland separatist ideology. Puntland was established in 1998 as an autonomous Somali polity whose political project anticipated participation in the reconstruction of Somalia through federalism. Its contemporary estrangement from Mogadishu therefore demands explanation.

This paper argues that Puntland’s dissatisfaction cannot adequately be understood as a bilateral quarrel between Garowe and Mogadishu or as the product of individual political personalities. It forms part of a wider structural contest concerning the meaning of Somali federalism. Comparable disputes have affected Jubaland and South West States and have involved regional elections, constitutional amendments, military deployments, international relations, development finance, and competing claims of governmental legitimacy.

The constitutional situation has become still more complicated by the controversy surrounding the duration of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s mandate. On March 5, 2026, Somalia’s Parliament approved constitutional changes that Reuters reported could extend the presidential term from four to five years and postpone elections originally expected in May 2026. The precise application of those provisions to the incumbent remained contested, making it more accurate to describe the matter as a controversial claim or potential extension arising from the constitutional amendments, rather than as an uncontested legal fact.[1]

The dispute consequently involves five overlapping crises:

1. a federal crisis concerning the distribution of authority between Mogadishu and the Federal Member States;
2. a constitutional crisis concerning the unilateral or insufficiently consensual alteration of the federal compact;
3. a security crisis concerning federal military authority and the political neutrality of national forces;
4. a fiscal crisis concerning the distribution and administration of internationally financed development resources; and
5. a mandate crisis concerning the authority of incumbent institutions to alter constitutional rules that may prolong their own tenure.

The paper nevertheless rejects an analysis in which every federal action is presumed illegitimate. It reconstructs Mogadishu’s strongest counter-case: Somalia remains one internationally sovereign state; foreign affairs, national defence, citizenship and immigration, and monetary policy are constitutionally federal responsibilities; national forces must possess genuine national reach; international financing imposes fiduciary obligations upon the Federal Government; constitutional reform cannot remain hostage indefinitely to one Federal Member State; and unrestricted regional foreign, security, and financial relationships risk transforming Somalia into a confederation by default.

The resulting conflict is therefore between two potentially destabilizing tendencies: Puntland’s expansive conception of constituent-state autonomy can approach de facto confederalism, while Mogadishu’s expansive conception of national sovereignty can approach administrative centralism.

Using the Ethiopia–Eritrea federation of 1952–1962 as a deliberately limited historical parallel, the paper argues that political unions founded upon protected autonomy become unstable when negotiated authority is progressively replaced by hierarchical authority.

Policy implication: Somalia requires neither a powerless nor an omnipotent centre. It needs a constitutionally constrained but functionally capable federal government; meaningful constituent‑state autonomy; rule‑based fiscal federalism; politically neutral national security institutions; and an authoritative constitutional mechanism for adjudicating centre–state disputes.

If genuine federalism fails, confederal arrangements will gain appeal. If both federal and confederal paths are foreclosed, separation may shift from a marginal Puntland proposition to a central political outcome.

Keywords: Puntland; Somalia; federalism; confederation; constitutionalism; mandate extension; Jubaland; South West State; Galkayo; Calmiskaad; fiscal federalism; Eritrea; Ethiopia.

---

I. Introduction: The Question Somalia Can No Longer Postpone

There is a persistent debate concerning Puntland State’s political future.

One position continues to favour Somali unity under genuine federalism.

Another increasingly considers confederation: a substantially looser Somali union in which Puntland and other constituent states would retain extensive governmental authority while delegating only specifically agreed functions to common institutions.

A third asks whether outright separation must eventually become a legitimate option if federalism becomes incapable of protecting meaningful self-government.

The existence of the third position is particularly significant.

Puntland was not founded as a conventional separatist project. Its institutions developed during the prolonged absence of an effective Somali national government, but the political objective remained participation in a reconstructed Somalia through federal arrangements.

The question therefore should not simply be:

Does Puntland want Somalia?

It should be:

What kind of Somalia did Puntland agree to help reconstruct, and what happens if that constitutional bargain is fundamentally changed without Puntland’s meaningful consent?

That is the question around which the present crisis turns.

---

II. Puntland and the Bottom-Up Reconstruction of Somalia

Puntland predates Somalia’s contemporary federal architecture.

That chronological fact has constitutional significance.

When Puntland was established in 1998, today’s Federal Government, Federal Parliament, and 2012 Provisional Constitution did not exist. Puntland constructed executive institutions, a legislature, security structures, administrative systems, and conflict-resolution mechanisms while national reconstruction remained incomplete.

Somalia’s federal reconstruction consequently differed from the conventional process in which an established central government devolves powers to provinces.

Political authority had already dispersed following state collapse.

The task was to reconstruct national institutions upward.

This historical experience produced a particularly strong conception of federalism in Puntland: the Federal Government exercises agreed national functions; it does not own the residual political authority of the constituent states.

Mogadishu has increasingly advanced a different conception: Somalia is one internationally sovereign republic, and federal authority must be sufficiently robust to prevent constituent states from evolving into quasi-independent governments.

Neither concern is inherently illegitimate.

Their collision is the constitutional problem.

---

III. Article 54: The Constitutional Bargain Cuts Both Ways

Somalia’s 2012 Provisional Constitution provides an essential starting point.

Article 54 states that the allocation of powers and resources between the Federal Government and Federal Member States shall be negotiated and agreed, except in four expressly federal fields:

foreign affairs; national defence; citizenship and immigration; and monetary policy.[2]

Article 53 is equally important. It requires the Federal Government to consult Federal Member States regarding negotiations involving foreign aid, trade, treaties, and other major international agreements. Where negotiations particularly affect state interests, Federal Member State representatives are supposed to participate in the federal negotiating delegation.[3]

The constitutional architecture therefore supports neither extreme.

It does not support the proposition that Puntland may exercise sovereign authority independently in every field.

Nor does it support the proposition that international sovereignty allows Mogadishu to determine every internal question.

The Constitution itself envisages shared government, consultation, negotiation, and divided authority.

That is federalism.

---

IV. Puntland’s 2013 Rupture: The Early Warning

Puntland’s confrontation with the centre long predates the current presidency.

In August 2013, Puntland suspended cooperation with the Federal Government during Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s first administration, citing disagreements over constitutional federalism, resource sharing, and federal authority.

The historical importance of that rupture is considerable.

It demonstrates that Puntland’s grievances cannot plausibly be reduced to President Said Abdullahi Deni, the 2024 constitutional amendments, or today’s political personalities.

The unresolved questions are structural:

Who controls national resources?

How are revenues shared?

How are international development funds allocated?

Who negotiates agreements affecting Federal Member States?

Which powers belong exclusively to Mogadishu?

Which remain with the states?

And who decides when the two sides disagree?

Somalia still lacks a sufficiently authoritative and trusted mechanism for answering those questions.

That omission has become increasingly dangerous.

---

V. This Is Not Merely a Puntland Problem

A common response to Puntland’s complaints has been to portray Garowe as uniquely obstructionist.

That argument becomes progressively weaker when similar confrontations repeatedly involve other Federal Member States.

South West has experienced severe disputes involving regional elections and federal security intervention.

Jubaland has experienced electoral, territorial, judicial, and military confrontation with Mogadishu.

Puntland has experienced disputes involving constitutional amendments, security, foreign relations, development finance, and federal authority.

By March 2026, South West State itself had severed relations with the Federal Government.[4]

The cumulative record therefore requires structural analysis.

---

VI. South West State, 2018: The Robow Precedent

The 2018 South West presidential election provides an important early example.

Mukhtar Robow, a former senior Al-Shabaab figure who had defected from the organization, entered the race.

The Federal Government opposed his candidacy.

Ethiopian forces arrested Robow in Baidoa on December 13, 2018. Protests followed. Human Rights Watch, citing United Nations findings, reported that security forces killed at least fifteen protesters and wounded many others between December 13 and 15.[5]

Robow’s past plainly raised legitimate security questions.

The constitutional concern is different.

A Federal Member State election became entangled with federal political preferences, foreign troops, candidate detention, and lethal security intervention.

That produced a dangerous precedent:

A constituent-state presidency appeared vulnerable to coercive intervention from outside the constituent state.

Whether that perception was entirely fair is less important institutionally than the fact that it became credible.

---

VII. Jubaland and Gedo: Political Disagreement Becomes Militarized

The dispute surrounding Ahmed Mohamed Islam Madobe’s 2019 reelection in Jubaland produced an even more serious confrontation.

The Federal Government challenged the electoral process.

Federal forces were subsequently deployed into Gedo, an area claimed politically by the Jubaland administration.

The confrontation became inseparable from Somalia’s broader electoral crisis.

The constitutional problem was no longer theoretical.

National forces were being perceived by one constituent government not as neutral instruments of common defence but as instruments in an internal political struggle.

Once a national military acquires that reputation, federal trust deteriorates rapidly.

---

VIII. The Federal Security Dilemma

The result is a classic security dilemma.

Mogadishu argues that Somalia requires a national army capable of operating throughout sovereign Somali territory.

Federal Member States fear that those forces can be used against them during political disputes.

They therefore maintain powerful regional forces.

Mogadishu interprets those forces as evidence that regional governments resist national integration.

The centre seeks greater military authority.

The states become still more determined to retain autonomous forces.

Both sides describe themselves as defending constitutional order.

Both become less secure.

Al-Shabaab and Islamic State benefit from the division.

A functioning federation cannot sustain this cycle indefinitely.

---

IX. The Constitutional Rupture of 2024

The dispute reached another threshold in March 2024 when the Federal Parliament adopted major amendments to the 2012 constitutional framework.

Puntland rejected the amendments and announced that it would cease recognizing federal institutions until a mutually agreed constitutional settlement was restored.

The amendments altered significant elements of Somalia’s political system, including electoral arrangements and executive authority. Critics argued that the changes concentrated power in the presidency. Puntland maintained that it had not consented to a fundamental rewriting of the federal bargain.

The Federal Government defended the process as necessary constitutional completion.

Somalia had remained governed for more than a decade under a constitution explicitly described as provisional.

Mogadishu argued that endless provisionality was itself unsustainable and linked the reforms to movement toward popular elections.

Both arguments contain constitutional force.

A provisional constitution cannot reasonably remain provisional forever.

But constitutional completion is not the same thing as constitutional consensus.

---

X. The 2026 Amendments and the Presidential Mandate Controversy

The crisis deepened on March 5, 2026.

Somalia’s Parliament approved further constitutional amendments that Reuters reported could increase the presidential term from four to five years and delay elections expected in May 2026.[6]

This development must be described precisely.

The amendments generated a major controversy over whether President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s own mandate had effectively been prolonged. Reuters reported that analysts considered the implications ambiguous: the amendments did not necessarily state expressly that the incumbent’s term was extended, but they created the possibility of an additional year depending upon interpretation and electoral implementation.[7]

The academically responsible formulation is therefore not that an uncontested legal extension unquestionably occurred.

It is that:

Somalia entered a serious constitutional dispute over whether amendments adopted by incumbent federal institutions had the effect of prolonging the incumbent political order beyond the four-year cycle under which President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was elected in May 2022.

That distinction matters.

But it does not make the constitutional problem smaller.

It makes it more serious.

---

XI. When the Rule-Makers Benefit from Changing the Rules

The mandate controversy introduces a conflict of constitutional interest.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was elected in May 2022 under a four-year political cycle.

Federal institutions subsequently participated in constitutional amendments capable of altering the duration of that cycle.

Even where amendment procedures are formally lawful, a basic constitutional question arises when incumbent institutions benefit directly from rules they themselves change.

The problem is elementary:

Those temporarily entrusted with political authority should not possess unrestricted power to change the date upon which that authority expires.

This does not mean that every transitional extension is unconstitutional.

Wars, natural disasters, institutional transitions, or genuine electoral impossibility can require temporary arrangements.

But extensions demand exceptionally strong legitimacy precisely because incumbents benefit from them.

The burden of justification should therefore be higher, not lower.

---

XII. Mogadishu’s Counter-Argument on the Mandate

The Federal Government has a serious response.

It can argue that describing the controversy simply as a presidential self-extension is misleading.

Parliament—not the President acting alone—approved the constitutional amendments.

The changes formed part of a broader attempt to establish a permanent constitutional and electoral framework.

Somalia was attempting to move from indirect elite selection toward broader electoral participation.

Such a transition requires electoral laws, voter registration, constituency arrangements, political-party organization, administrative preparation, security, and funding.

Mogadishu can therefore argue:

Should Somalia abandon constitutional reform merely because implementing a new electoral architecture takes longer than the existing electoral calendar allows?

That argument cannot simply be dismissed.

But neither does parliamentary approval settle the matter.

---

XIII. Parliament Can Also Possess a Conflict of Interest

A legislature may suffer from precisely the same constitutional conflict when amendments extend the political life of the institutions whose members approve them.

Parliamentary enactment answers:

Who formally changed the rule?

It does not necessarily answer:

Was changing that rule democratically legitimate?

The proper assessment must consider:

the pre-existing constitutional framework;

the amendment procedure;

the degree of political inclusion;

participation by Federal Member States;

the necessity and proportionality of any transitional extension;

the existence of a definite electoral timetable;

and whether incumbents acquire political advantages unavailable under the rules through which they assumed office.

The controversy therefore cannot be resolved by saying simply:

Parliament voted.

Constitutionalism is more demanding than parliamentary arithmetic.

---

XIV. The Circular Legitimacy Problem

The mandate dispute becomes particularly serious when placed alongside the Puntland dispute.

Puntland rejected the constitutional process.

The Federal Government nevertheless continued the constitutional review.

Those amendments subsequently became part of the legal architecture through which federal institutions claim continuing authority.

Mogadishu then invokes federal authority to demand Puntland’s compliance.

This creates a circular problem:

Puntland disputes the legitimacy of the constitutional process.

Mogadishu invokes the outcome of that process as proof of its authority over Puntland.

The issue is therefore no longer merely the length of one president’s tenure.

It concerns who possesses legitimate authority to alter the constitutional rules governing the duration and scope of federal power itself.

---

XV. Federalism Requires a Legitimate Federal Centre

Federalism imposes constitutional discipline in both directions.

Puntland cannot invoke autonomy indefinitely while disregarding legitimate federal authority.

But Mogadishu cannot demand unconditional recognition of federal supremacy while the rules governing the tenure and powers of federal institutions are themselves seriously contested.

This produces a fundamental principle:

Federal authority cannot be more legitimate than the constitutional process from which that authority derives.

The mandate controversy therefore intensifies Puntland’s argument.

From Garowe’s perspective, the sequence can be read as follows:

constitutional disagreement;

unilateral or insufficiently consensual amendment;

Puntland’s withdrawal of recognition;

further constitutional amendment;

a disputed change potentially prolonging federal tenure;

and increasing assertion of federal authority against constituent states that reject the amended framework.

Whether one accepts Puntland’s interpretation or not, this is precisely the type of sequence capable of destroying federal trust.

---

XVI. Jubaland, Ras Kamboni, and the Limits of One-Sided Narratives

The Jubaland confrontation escalated again in late 2024 following another disputed election involving President Madobe.

Competing assertions of legitimacy escalated into judicial and security confrontation and eventually fighting around Ras Kamboni.

A balanced account is necessary.

The episode cannot simply be described as an unprovoked federal attack upon Jubaland.

Later analysis attributed the initial attack in the immediate armed confrontation to Jubaland forces.

That fact does not erase the political confrontation and federal military buildup that preceded the fighting.

But it demonstrates why the Puntland case becomes stronger—not weaker—when evidence contradicting its preferred narrative is acknowledged.

Federalism cannot be studied through propaganda from either side.

---

XVII. South West State, 2026: The Crisis Reaches a Former Ally

On March 17, 2026, South West State announced that it was severing relations and suspending cooperation with the Federal Government.[8]

This was particularly consequential because South West had generally been politically closer to Mogadishu than Puntland or Jubaland.

Less than two weeks later, federal forces entered Baidoa.

Reuters reported on March 30 that national forces took control of parts of the South West capital following fighting with forces loyal to the regional administration. President Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen subsequently resigned. The Federal Government accused his administration of creating political conflict and maintained that federal forces were welcomed, while residents had fled areas of the city fearing wider violence.[9]

Whatever interpretation one prefers, the institutional fact is remarkable:

A constitutional confrontation between the centre and a Federal Member State culminated in federal forces taking control of the member state’s capital.

That cannot be treated as ordinary federal politics.

---

XVIII. Calmiskaad: Where Was the Federation?

If Baidoa and Gedo raise questions about excessive federal presence, Puntland’s Calmiskaad campaign raises the opposite question:

Where was federal power when Puntland needed national assistance?

Beginning in late 2024, Puntland forces launched a major campaign against Islamic State in the mountainous areas of Bari.

By February 2025, Reuters reported that Puntland forces had captured approximately 250 square kilometres and fifty Islamic State bases. Puntland reported substantial militant casualties as well as the deaths of its own soldiers.[10]

This was not merely a local policing operation.

ISIS-Somalia formed part of an international terrorist network, contained foreign fighters, and represented a threat extending beyond Puntland.

Yet Puntland Information Minister Mohammed Aided told Reuters that there was no operational coordination with the Federal Government and appealed for additional international assistance, including counter-drone capabilities, mine-clearing equipment, expertise, and other support.[11]

That statement supplies Puntland with one of its strongest political arguments.

Its forces were performing a function of unmistakable national and international importance.

Yet the principal ground burden remained Puntland’s.

---

XIX. Mogadishu’s Calmiskaad Response

The Federal Government disputed the broader implication that it was simply absent.

Federal Information Minister Daud Aweis told Reuters that Mogadishu maintained security engagement with stakeholders including Puntland and emphasized the need for stronger federal institutions and a cohesive national counterterrorism strategy.[12]

That response reveals the deeper federal argument.

Puntland says:

We operate independently because Mogadishu cannot reliably perform the common security function.

Mogadishu effectively answers:

The common security function cannot work properly because Puntland and other states operate through fragmented command structures and independent external partnerships.

Both arguments possess internal logic.

The constitutional failure lies in the fact that Somalia still lacks an agreed security architecture capable of resolving the contradiction.

---

XX. Development Finance: The Puntland Accusation

Another persistent Puntland grievance concerns international development resources.

Puntland political actors have alleged that Mogadishu has withheld, delayed, redirected, or politically conditioned resources intended for Puntland.

These claims must be treated carefully.

Independent research by the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre confirms repeated allegations that the Federal Government has withheld or redirected aid away from Puntland and other territories because of political disputes. U4 also notes reports alleging that millions of dollars allocated to Puntland were redirected toward regions considered politically closer to the Federal Government.[13]

But U4 adds an essential qualification:

the evidence is often unclear, making it difficult to determine whether all such accusations are themselves politically motivated.[14]

That qualification belongs in any serious paper.

Puntland’s allegation is documented.

Every individual allegation is not thereby proven.

---

XXI. Mogadishu’s Fiscal Defence

The Federal Government possesses a substantial counterargument.

International assistance is often legally provided to the Federal Republic of Somalia rather than directly to each Federal Member State.

Mogadishu therefore carries fiduciary responsibilities involving:

audit;

procurement;

budget reporting;

public financial management;

debt sustainability;

donor compliance;

and national financial governance.

Federal financial records also demonstrate substantial transfers to Federal Member States generally.

Somalia’s Ministry of Finance reported that $117.72 million was disbursed in 2024 under the expenditure category covering transfers to Federal Member States and certain other organizations, including $20.56 million facilitated through donor project funds.[15]

That evidence prevents an academically responsible paper from claiming that Mogadishu simply confiscates all state resources.

The problem is subtler.

Federal control creates legitimate administrative responsibility.

It also creates potential political leverage.

---

XXII. Fiscal Federalism Must Be Rule-Based

The answer is institutional rather than rhetorical.

State allocations should be formula-based.

Conditions should be published.

Disbursements should be traceable.

Audits should be independent.

Technical non-compliance should be documented.

Political disagreements should be irrelevant.

Hospitals are not political opponents.

Road projects do not boycott constitutional conferences.

Water systems do not dispute presidential mandates.

Citizens should not lose development because two governments disagree.

A rule-based system would protect Puntland from genuine discrimination while simultaneously protecting Mogadishu from unfounded accusations of discrimination.

---

XXIII. Galkayo, August 2026: The Latest Warning

The constitutional confrontation has now reached one of Somalia’s most politically sensitive cities.

In early August 2026, fighting erupted in Galkayo involving Puntland forces and an armed formation based near the airport in northern Galkayo whose commanders had aligned themselves with Mogadishu.

Puntland forces seized the camp following heavy fighting.

Puntland characterized the operation as necessary to remove a security threat and accused Mogadishu of supporting destabilizing armed formations.

The episode is particularly dangerous because Galkayo has historically been divided between Puntland administration in the north and Galmudug administration in the south and has experienced recurrent clan and political violence.

Armed federal-state competition in such an environment is therefore potentially explosive.

---

XXIV. Galkayo: Allegation Is Not Yet Proof of Intent

A scholarly paper must distinguish three propositions.

First, armed confrontation occurred.

Second, Puntland regarded the forces involved as federally aligned.

Third, Puntland alleges that Mogadishu deliberately supported those forces in order to destabilize Puntland.

The first two propositions are much easier to establish publicly than the third.

Evidence of federal alignment does not automatically establish a federal plan to destabilize Puntland.

Mogadishu’s strongest counterargument is consequently straightforward:

Federal security relationships and national forces operating inside internationally recognized Somali territory cannot automatically be characterized as foreign aggression against Puntland.

That argument has constitutional weight.

But it does not eliminate federal responsibility.

Where armed formations associated with the national government operate in a Federal Member State during an acute political confrontation, Mogadishu should be able to identify clearly:

their legal status;

their command;

their mission;

their financing;

their relationship with the national security structure;

and the constitutional basis for their presence.

Without that transparency, federal security activity becomes indistinguishable politically from intervention.

---

XXV. The Calmiskaad–Galkayo Paradox

For Puntland, the political contrast is devastating.

In Calmiskaad, Puntland says it fought an international terrorist organization without operational coordination with Mogadishu.

In Galkayo, it encountered forces aligned with Mogadishu during a domestic political confrontation.

The resulting perception is:

Mogadishu appears weak where Puntland needs federal assistance and strong where Puntland fears federal interference.

The Federal Government disputes that characterization.

But legitimacy depends partly upon what institutions visibly do.

A national government cannot afford to become perceived as less operationally relevant against ISIS in Puntland than it is during political confrontations inside Puntland.

---

XXVI. Mogadishu’s Strongest Case Against Puntland

The Federal Government’s broader argument must nevertheless be stated at full strength.

If every Federal Member State independently claims the right to:

conduct foreign relations;

enter strategic military agreements;

determine whether national forces may operate within its territory;

reject national constitutional decisions;

maintain largely independent armed forces;

negotiate directly with foreign powers over strategic infrastructure;

ignore federal diplomatic decisions;

and decide which national institutions it recognizes,

then Somalia eventually ceases to function as a federation.

It becomes a confederation without admitting that it has become one.

Mogadishu is entitled to regard that prospect as a threat to national statehood.

---

XXVII. Foreign Affairs: Where Mogadishu Has a Strong Case

Article 54 explicitly places foreign affairs within federal competence.

This became particularly visible in January 2026 when the Federal Government severed diplomatic and security relations with the United Arab Emirates.

Puntland and Jubaland rejected Mogadishu’s decision. Puntland maintained that its relationship with the UAE, including the long-term DP World arrangement concerning Bosaso port, would continue.[16]

From Puntland’s perspective, the UAE relationship concerns longstanding security, investment, port development, and counterterrorism interests.

From Mogadishu’s perspective, the constitutional problem is obvious:

How can Somalia possess one foreign policy if constituent states independently maintain relationships that the national government has formally terminated?

On this issue, Mogadishu possesses substantial constitutional grounds.

But Article 53 provides the necessary counterweight: the Federal Government must consult states where international agreements significantly affect their interests.

National competence does not mean national indifference to constituent-state interests.

---

XXVIII. National Sovereignty Is Real—but Not Unlimited Internally

Somalia is the internationally recognized sovereign state.

It represents the country before international institutions.

It carries international debt obligations.

It conducts treaty relations.

It defends Somalia’s territorial integrity.

These are genuine federal functions.

But international sovereignty does not automatically confer unlimited internal jurisdiction.

Canada is sovereign.

Germany is sovereign.

Switzerland is sovereign.

The United States is sovereign.

Their constituent units nevertheless possess constitutionally protected powers.

Thus the phrase “Somalia is one country” cannot answer every internal jurisdictional dispute.

If it could, federalism would be merely decorative.

---

XXIX. Puntland Cannot Have a Permanent Veto

Mogadishu also has a legitimate objection to an excessively rigid conception of state consent.

If every constitutional amendment requires unanimous approval by every Federal Member State, a single government may acquire permanent power to block constitutional development.

Consultation cannot necessarily mean unanimity.

Negotiation cannot necessarily mean veto.

Somalia requires institutions capable of making decisions.

Otherwise federalism becomes paralysis.

Puntland has a right to participate.

It has a right to object.

It has a right to demand constitutional protection.

But it does not follow automatically that Puntland must possess a unilateral veto over every national reform.

---

XXX. But Mogadishu Cannot Vote Federalism Away

The opposite danger is equally serious.

If an ordinary national majority can alter the powers of constituent states without meaningful state consent, the centre can effectively determine the limits of its own authority.

That is structurally dangerous.

Established federations generally impose special amendment requirements when the federal balance itself is altered.

Somalia needs a mechanism combining national democratic legitimacy with constituent-state consent.

Neither absolute state veto nor unlimited federal majoritarianism is adequate.

---

XXXI. Universal Suffrage Does Not Answer the Federal Question

Mogadishu’s desire to replace indirect political selection with broader popular elections is democratically defensible.

But democracy and federalism answer different questions.

Democracy asks:

Who governs?

Federalism asks:

Which government possesses which powers?

A directly elected president can still violate federalism.

A directly elected state president can still violate state constitutionalism.

Votes establish democratic legitimacy.

They do not create unlimited jurisdiction.

Somalia requires both democratic elections and constitutional federalism.

Neither substitutes for the other.

---

XXXII. National Defence: Mogadishu Is Right About Something Fundamental

Somalia cannot possess a meaningful national army if every Federal Member State treats federal forces as foreign troops.

The country confronts Al-Shabaab, Islamic State, piracy, transnational crime, and external security threats.

National defence is explicitly federal under Article 54.

A national military therefore requires genuine national reach.

Puntland must acknowledge this.

But Mogadishu must acknowledge the corresponding limitation.

---

XXXIII. National Defence Cannot Become a Universal Intervention Clause

There is a constitutional difference between deploying federal troops:

against Al-Shabaab;

against Islamic State;

to an international frontier;

or against external aggression,

and deploying forces during a contested Federal Member State election or political confrontation.

Without clear rules, “national security” can swallow federal autonomy.

Somalia therefore needs binding protocols governing:

federal deployment;

state consultation;

joint command;

regional forces;

counterterrorism coordination;

political neutrality;

and dispute resolution.

Until then, Mogadishu will call the same troop movement national authority that Garowe or Kismayo calls political intervention.

---

XXXIV. The Mandate Problem Changes the Balance

The controversy over President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s tenure adds another dimension to all of these federal claims.

The Federal Government can legitimately insist upon its constitutional competencies.

But the authority of institutions asserting those competencies depends upon the legitimacy of the constitutional order under which they continue governing.

If the centre changes the rules governing federalism and simultaneously changes rules capable of extending the duration of the federal institutions making those changes, constituent-state distrust becomes almost inevitable.

The constitutional danger is therefore not merely an extra year.

It is the precedent of constitutional self-preservation.

A rule defended because one trusts today’s president must also be safe if exercised tomorrow by a president one distrusts.

That is the correct constitutional test.

---

XXXV. The Missing Institution: Who Judges the Federation?

The deepest structural weakness is now obvious.

When Puntland and Mogadishu disagree over constitutional powers, who decides?

Puntland cannot be the final judge of its own jurisdiction.

But neither can the Federal Government.

Mogadishu is simultaneously:

the national executive;

the international representative of Somalia;

a participant in constitutional amendment;

the principal national security authority;

an important gatekeeper for international finance;

and one of the parties to the federal dispute.

A functioning federation requires an independent constitutional arbiter capable of binding both sides.

Without one, disputes migrate from law to bargaining, bargaining to financial pressure, and financial pressure to armed confrontation.

---

XXXVI. The Ethiopia–Eritrea Parallel: A Warning, Not a Prediction

The Ethiopia–Eritrea federation provides a useful but limited historical parallel.

Puntland is not Eritrea.

Eritrea had a separate colonial history and entered federation with Ethiopia through an internationally sponsored arrangement.

The legal histories are different.

The comparison concerns institutional dynamics.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 390 A (V), adopted on December 2, 1950, provided for Eritrea to become an autonomous unit federated with Ethiopia.[17]

The federation came into effect in 1952.

Over the following decade, Eritrean autonomy was progressively eroded.

In 1962, Ethiopia annexed Eritrea and terminated the federal arrangement.

The intended result was integration.

The historical result was radicalization of the Eritrean political question, prolonged armed struggle, and ultimately independence.

The lesson is not that Puntland should imitate Eritrea.

The lesson is:

Destroying constitutional autonomy does not necessarily destroy the political demand for autonomy. It may radicalize it.

---

XXXVII. The Centralization Paradox

This produces what may be called the centralization paradox.

The centre fears fragmentation.

It therefore accumulates authority.

Constituent states interpret increased central authority as proof that existing autonomy guarantees cannot be trusted.

They demand stronger guarantees.

The centre interprets those demands as separatism.

It centralizes further.

Federalists become confederalists.

Confederalists may eventually become separatists.

The policy intended to preserve national unity thereby manufactures the political constituency for exit.

---

XXXVIII. The Autonomy Escalation Ladder

The process can be conceptualized as:

decentralization → federalism → enhanced federalism → confederation → sovereignty

Movement along this ladder is not inevitable.

Political communities move upward when weaker constitutional guarantees repeatedly fail.

Puntland historically occupied the federal position.

Somalia’s strategic objective should be to make that position sufficiently secure that Puntland has no compelling reason to move further.

---

XXXIX. Confederation Should Be Studied, Not Feared

Confederation should therefore enter serious Somali constitutional debate.

A confederal Somali arrangement might delegate to common institutions agreed responsibility for:

external defence;

currency;

citizenship;

selected foreign affairs;

interstate trade;

maritime security;

international debt;

and agreed national infrastructure.

Most domestic governmental authority would remain with the constituent states.

Confederation has disadvantages.

It may weaken coordinated security.

It may complicate redistribution.

Foreign powers could exploit internal differences.

National infrastructure could become harder to manage.

But constitutional alternatives must be compared with reality, not perfection.

A looser union commanding genuine consent may ultimately be stronger than an ambitious federation continuously resisted by its constituent parts.

---

XL. Separation: The Option Centralization Could Create

Puntland’s historical commitment to Somali reconstruction makes the emergence of separatist sentiment especially significant.

If Puntland had always been separatist, contemporary demands for separation would tell us little.

But Puntland was founded within a Somali political framework.

The relevant future question would therefore be:

What caused a historically federalist polity to conclude that federalism could no longer protect it?

If Mogadishu wishes never to confront that question, it must make the existing constitutional bargain credible.

---

XLI. Puntland Must Also Look in the Mirror

Puntland cannot defend constitutionalism nationally while neglecting constitutionalism internally.

Its strongest argument against central domination is not historical entitlement.

It is governmental performance.

Puntland must strengthen:

independent courts;

legislative accountability;

professional policing;

civilian control of security institutions;

transparent public finance;

competitive politics;

local government;

human-rights protection;

constitutional succession;

and accountability for political violence.

Clan militias and private armed formations cannot coexist indefinitely with serious statehood.

Self-government without the rule of law merely decentralizes arbitrary power.

---

XLII. A Constitutional Futures Commission

Puntland should establish an independent Constitutional Futures Commission.

It should examine three scenarios without predetermined conclusions.

Option I — Reconstructed Federalism

What constitutional guarantees would make Puntland’s continued participation sustainable?

The Commission should address:

allocation of powers;

fiscal federalism;

natural resources;

international agreements;

security command;

federal troop deployment;

constitutional amendment;

and independent adjudication.

Option II — Somali Confederation

The Commission should examine:

citizenship;

currency;

defence;

foreign relations;

airspace;

ports;

maritime jurisdiction;

international borrowing;

treaties;

and interstate commerce.

Option III — Separation

Even if separation remains undesirable, responsible government should understand its implications:

recognition;

borders;

citizenship;

assets and liabilities;

public debt;

currency;

trade;

defence;

airspace;

maritime boundaries;

and relations with the remainder of Somalia.

The purpose would not be to manufacture separation.

It would be to replace emotional speculation with constitutional analysis.

---

XLIII. The Five-Dimensional Crisis

The Puntland question should therefore now be understood through five overlapping constitutional crises.

1. Federalism

Who possesses which powers?

2. Constitutional Amendment

Who may change those powers and through what procedure?

3. Security

When may federal forces operate inside constituent states, and under whose command?

4. Fiscal Federalism

How are national and international resources distributed without political discrimination?

5. Democratic Mandate

Can incumbent federal institutions alter constitutional rules that may prolong their own tenure, particularly when major constituent states dispute the legitimacy of the amendment process?

These crises reinforce one another.

That is why Somalia’s present predicament cannot be solved through another political communiqué.

It requires constitutional settlement.

---

XLIV. What Mogadishu Is Right About

Mogadishu is right that Somalia requires meaningful national institutions.

It is right that foreign affairs cannot be completely fragmented.

It is right that national defence requires coordination.

It is right that citizenship and monetary policy require national institutions.

It is right that international creditors require a sovereign counterpart.

It is right that Puntland cannot automatically veto every national decision.

It is right that Federal Member States cannot selectively invoke only those constitutional provisions that restrain Mogadishu.

And it is right that a system in which every Federal Member State behaves as an independent sovereign would cease meaningfully to be a federation.

These are not trivial arguments.

They are part of statehood.

---

XLV. What Puntland Is Right About

Puntland is right that federalism cannot survive if the centre alone determines what federalism means.

It is right that constitutional changes affecting constituent-state powers require meaningful state participation.

It is right that national security institutions must not become instruments of regional political competition.

It is right that international development resources require safeguards against political manipulation.

It is right to ask why operational federal assistance appeared so limited during its major campaign against ISIS.

It is right to demand clarity about federally aligned armed formations operating within Puntland territory.

And it is right to question constitutional arrangements capable of extending the tenure of the very federal institutions adopting those arrangements.

These are not inherently separatist arguments.

They are constitutional arguments.

---

XLVI. The Central Finding

Once both cases are stated seriously, Somalia’s problem becomes clearer.

Puntland sometimes advances an interpretation of autonomy approaching confederal sovereignty.

Mogadishu sometimes advances an interpretation of national sovereignty approaching unitary centralism.

Neither extreme offers a stable federal settlement.

Somalia requires:

a functionally strong but constitutionally limited Federal Government.

The centre must be powerful where the Constitution makes it powerful.

It must be restrained where the Constitution makes the states autonomous.

The same principle applies to Puntland.

That is the essence of federalism.

---

XLVII. Conclusion: The Federation Must Earn the Union

Puntland’s constitutional debate is no longer theoretical.

It is the cumulative product of political experience.

That experience includes Puntland’s 2013 rupture with Mogadishu; South West’s 2018 election crisis and the Robow arrest; the Jubaland-Gedo confrontation; the disputed constitutional amendments beginning in 2024; the Ras Kamboni confrontation; Puntland’s largely self-directed Calmiskaad campaign against Islamic State; allegations concerning development resources; South West State’s 2026 rupture and federal intervention in Baidoa; the disputed presidential mandate arising from the March 2026 constitutional changes; and the August 2026 Galkayo confrontation.

Not every Puntland accusation has been proven.

Not every federal action is unconstitutional.

That is precisely why the cumulative pattern is so important.

The central problem is not that every action by Mogadishu can be demonstrated to constitute hostile interference.

The deeper problem is that Somalia’s constitutional architecture is insufficiently trusted to distinguish legitimate federal authority from political federal intervention.

The mandate controversy makes this problem substantially more serious.

The question is no longer only:

What powers does Mogadishu possess over Puntland?

It is also:

Under what constitutional authority do the federal institutions claiming those powers continue to govern?

Reuters reported that the March 2026 amendments could extend the presidential term by a year, although the application to the incumbent remained legally and politically ambiguous.[18]

That ambiguity itself is damaging.

The expiration of political authority should not be mysterious.

Citizens should know when a president’s mandate begins.

They should know when it ends.

Opponents should know when elections occur.

Security institutions should know that their loyalty belongs to constitutional government rather than indefinite incumbency.

Constitutional predictability is not administrative decoration.

It is one of the foundations of peaceful politics.

Puntland was founded not to destroy Somalia but to survive Somalia’s collapse and participate in its reconstruction.

Federalism supplied the compromise:

self-government without separation; Somali unity without renewed central domination.

That bargain remains possible.

But it must work both ways.

Puntland cannot demand constitutional restraint from Mogadishu while ignoring legitimate federal powers.

Mogadishu cannot demand obedience from Puntland while claiming the unilateral authority to determine the extent of those powers.

And neither Parliament nor the Presidency should casually establish precedents allowing incumbent institutions to rewrite constitutional clocks from which they themselves benefit.

Somalia requires a real Federal Government.

Somalia also requires real Federal Member States.

Destroy the first and the republic fragments through weakness.

Destroy the second and the federation fragments through resistance.

The Ethiopia–Eritrea historical parallel is therefore not prophecy.

It is warning.

Political unions rarely disintegrate because of one disagreement.

They deteriorate when exceptions become precedents, precedents become practices, and practices gradually replace the original constitutional compact.

If genuine federalism works, Puntland has powerful reasons to remain within Somalia.

If federalism becomes nominal, confederation becomes increasingly rational.

If both meaningful federalism and confederal accommodation become impossible, separation will inevitably move closer to mainstream Puntland political debate.

That is not a declaration of independence.

It is the logic of failed constitutional guarantees.

The responsibility therefore lies equally—but differently—with Garowe and Mogadishu.

Puntland must demonstrate that self-government produces constitutional government.

Mogadishu must demonstrate that national government does not mean central domination.

And Somalia as a whole must establish one principle beyond political manipulation:

The constitutional rules governing the federation cannot belong to whichever political faction temporarily occupies Villa Somalia.

Mogadishu is the seat of the Federal Government.

It is not the proprietor of the federation.

Puntland is a constituent state.

It is not an independent sovereign under the existing constitutional compact.

Between those propositions lies Somalia’s possible future.

The federation will survive only if both are respected.

A federation survives not because one side wins the struggle for power, but because neither side can constitutionally dominate the other.

And the final historical lesson is perhaps the simplest:

If Somalia wants Puntland to remain federalist, Somalia must make federalism worth defending.

---

Notes

1. Reuters, “Somali Parliament Backs Constitutional Changes That Could Extend President’s Term,” March 5, 2026. Reuters reported that the amendments could extend the presidential term by one year and delay elections, while analysts noted ambiguity concerning their precise application to the incumbent.

2. Federal Republic of Somalia, Provisional Constitution of the Federal Republic of Somalia (Mogadishu, 2012), art. 54. Article 54 reserves foreign affairs, national defence, citizenship and immigration, and monetary policy to the Federal Government while requiring other allocations of powers and resources to be negotiated and agreed.

3. Federal Republic of Somalia, Provisional Constitution, art. 53. The article requires consultation with Federal Member States regarding foreign aid, trade, treaties, and other major international agreements and provides for state participation where their interests are particularly affected.

4. Reuters, “Somalia’s South West State Says It Has Severed Ties with the Federal Government,” March 17, 2026.

5. Human Rights Watch, “Somalia,” World Report 2020 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2020). Human Rights Watch, citing the United Nations, reported that at least fifteen protesters were killed following Mukhtar Robow’s December 2018 arrest.

6. Reuters, “Somali Parliament Backs Constitutional Changes That Could Extend President’s Term,” March 5, 2026.

7. Ibid. Reuters reported analysis indicating that the constitutional implications remained ambiguous and that the changes did not necessarily expressly prolong the incumbent’s term, although they could produce that effect.

8. Reuters, “Somalia’s South West State Says It Has Severed Ties with the Federal Government,” March 17, 2026.

9. Reuters, “Somali Army Takes Control of Strategic City, Regional Leader Resigns,” March 30, 2026. Reuters reported fighting between national forces and troops loyal to South West State, federal control of parts of Baidoa, civilian flight, and the subsequent resignation of the regional president.

10. Reuters, “Puntland Offensive Deals Blow to Islamic State in Somalia,” February 7, 2025. Reuters reported Puntland’s claim that its forces had recovered approximately 250 square kilometres and fifty Islamic State bases.

11. Ibid. Puntland Information Minister Mohammed Aided stated that there was no operational coordination with the Federal Government and appealed for additional international assistance.

12. Ibid. Federal Information Minister Daud Aweis maintained that Mogadishu had continuing security engagement with stakeholders including Puntland and called for stronger federal institutions and a cohesive national counterterrorism strategy.

13. U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, Aid Diversion and Corruption in Somalia (Bergen: U4, February 9, 2026), section “Politicised Allocation.” The report records repeated allegations of federal withholding or redirection of aid from Puntland and other territories and cites reports of international aid allocated to Puntland allegedly being redirected toward politically aligned regions.

14. Ibid. U4 explicitly cautions that evidence concerning the political motivation of such alleged diversions is often unclear.

15. Federal Government of Somalia, Ministry of Finance, 2024 End Year Budget Performance Report (Mogadishu: Budget Department, March 26, 2025), paras. 44–45. The report states that $117.72 million was disbursed under the category covering transfers to Federal Member States and other organizations during 2024, including $20.56 million through donor project funds.

16. Reuters, “Somali Regions Reject Mogadishu’s Move to Cut Ties with UAE,” January 13, 2026. Puntland and Jubaland rejected the Federal Government’s termination of relations with the UAE; Puntland maintained that its existing UAE relationship and DP World Bosaso concession remained valid.

17. United Nations General Assembly, Resolution 390 A (V), “Eritrea,” December 2, 1950, UN Doc. A/RES/390(V). The resolution established the framework under which Eritrea would constitute an autonomous unit federated with Ethiopia.

18. Reuters, “Somali Parliament Backs Constitutional Changes That Could Extend President’s Term,” March 5, 2026.

---

Bibliography

Federal Government of Somalia, Ministry of Finance. 2024 End Year Budget Performance Report. Mogadishu: Budget Department, March 26, 2025.

Federal Republic of Somalia. Provisional Constitution of the Federal Republic of Somalia. Mogadishu, 2012.

Human Rights Watch. “Somalia.” World Report 2020. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2020.

International Crisis Group. Ending the Dangerous Standoff in Southern Somalia. Africa Briefing. Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2020.

———. Staving off Violence around Somalia’s Elections. Africa Briefing. Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2020.

———. “Stabilising Somalia for Elections and What Comes After.” Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2021.

Puntland Development Research Centre and Interpeace. A Bottom-Up Approach to Peace and Statebuilding: Lessons from the Somali Experience. Garowe: PDRC/Interpeace, 2008.

Puntland State of Somalia. Constitution of the Puntland State of Somalia.

Reuters. “Puntland Offensive Deals Blow to Islamic State in Somalia.” February 7, 2025.

———. “Somali Regions Reject Mogadishu’s Move to Cut Ties with UAE.” January 13, 2026.

———. “Somali Parliament Backs Constitutional Changes That Could Extend President’s Term.” March 5, 2026.

———. “Somalia’s South West State Says It Has Severed Ties with the Federal Government.” March 17, 2026.

———. “Somali Army Takes Control of Strategic City, Regional Leader Resigns.” March 30, 2026.

U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre. Aid Diversion and Corruption in Somalia. Bergen: U4, February 9, 2026.

United Nations General Assembly. Resolution 390 A (V), “Eritrea.” UN Doc. A/RES/390(V). December 2, 1950.

---

WDM Editorial Proposition

The evidence does not require the intellectually convenient fiction that Mogadishu is always wrong.

Nor does Somali sovereignty support the equally dangerous fiction that whatever Mogadishu does in the name of the Federal Republic is automatically constitutional.

Puntland must respect legitimate federal authority.

Mogadishu must accept that legitimate federal authority has constitutional limits.

And incumbent federal institutions must recognize that constitutional legitimacy becomes particularly vulnerable when they alter rules capable of extending their own tenure.

Federalism is not obedience to Mogadishu.

Federalism is not independence from Mogadishu.

It is constitutionally divided government.

That distinction is now the difference between preserving the Somali federation and slowly dismantling it.

BBC WORLD SERVICE AT 1706 GMT. THIS IS RACHAEL AKIDI WITH FOCUS ON AFRICA 
The port town of Bosaso in the Somali region of Puntland has today fallen to forces loyal to Colonel Abdullahi Yussuf Ahmed. The fall of this economically important town follows two days of fierce fighting between colonel Abdullahi and forces loyal to Jama Ali Jama, his rival for leadership of Puntland. From Mogadishu, our Correspondent, Hassan Barisse, emailed this report:
 Hassan Barisse: The forces of Colonel Yussuf captured Bosaso without any resistance at about 8 AM local time. The whereabouts of Jama Ali Jama is not known. But sources close to his aides say he left Bosaso to Qardho town yesterday afternoon by road to Iskushuban District about 160 km east to Bosaso from where he is reported to have taken a plane to an undisclosed destination. Some of Jama’s supporters insist that he is still in Qardho town, but that sounds unlikely. Colonel Yussuf himself reached Bosaso town at about 11.30 AM local time and immediately went to the Presidential building in the town were he started receiving elders, religious scholars and women’s groups, all of whom congratulated him on his victory. Ugas Hassan, one of the main traditional leaders of Puntland told me today in a telephone interview from Bosaso that the arrival of Colonel Yussuf followed a meeting between elders, Muslim scholars and politicians from Bosaso with Colonel Yussuf himself in Kalabayr District, some 60 km south of the town. According to Ugas Hassan, the elders and politicians asked Colonel Yussuf to respect the peace and that if he wants to come to Bosaso town, he could do so without fighting. All day yesterday and last night, the local FM radio in the town has been broadcasting messages from the Commander of the Police Forces in Bosaso, Colonel Jaatta (as heard) telling the people they should remain calm. Many people understood from that message the whole thing was a set-up between the elders, the Police and Colonel Abdullahi Yussuf. Supporters of Jama Ali Jama had characterized the capture of Bosaso as a Coup d’ Grace and a plot masterminded by Ethiopia.
RACHAEL AKIDI: That emailed report from our Correspondent, Hassan Barrise in Mogadishu. Well, Ismail Warsame is a spokesman for Colonel Abdullahi Yussuf Ahmed. Robin White asked him what the situation was. Ismail Haji Warsame: Well, the city welcomed Abdullahi Yussuf. There was not a single bullet fired today. Traditional elders, intellectuals, women’s group and the rest of the residents of Bosaso have met Abdullahi Yussuf at the gate of Bosaso to welcome and escort to the Presidential palace today.
 Robin White: eeeee, will he stay there?
IHW: Yes, he will be there for quite a while as far as I know.
Robin White: Did the Ethiopian troops help him in the capture of Bosaso?
IHW: Absolutely nonsense.
Robin White: There is no single Ethiopian soldier in Puntland proper.
Robin White: Did the Ethiopians encourage you to take Bosaso?
IHW: Not at all. Not at all. In fact the Ethiopian State were trying to mediate between Abdullahi Yussuf and his rival. Unfortunately, Jama Ali Jama refused to even sit with Abdullahi Yussuf in Addis Ababa recently.
Robin White: So, what happens here? Is there any chance of reconciliation?
IHW: With whom to reconcile? President Abdullahi Yussuf is trying to restore Law&Order. There is no fighting in Bosaso. There is no armed opposition against him. There was little resistance on the part of Jama Ali Jama. He has no grass roots support. That is why Abdullahi Yussuf is in Bosaso without even a fight.
Robin White: Now, what is gona happen to your relations with the GOVERNMENT in Mogadishu? Clearly, they supported Jama Ali Jama and not you. So are relations going to   be really extremely bad between you and the Mogadishu GOVERNMENT?
IHW: There is no Government in Mog that we recognize. We know there is ARTA Faction which controls less than 2 streets in Mog, enforced by Djibouti. So, what Government are you talking about? 
Robin White: So, are you now working for the overthrow of the Mogadishu GOVERNMENT?
IHW: We are working towards national reconciliation.
Robin White: Does that mean trying to overthrow the GOVERNMENT in Mogadishu or the INTERIM GOVERNMENT?
IHW: There is no government to overthrow. There is a faction.
Robin White: So, will you try to drive out this, eee FACTION, as you call it!
Robin White: It is not our obligation to overthrow a faction in Somalia. We will welcome that faction to talk to us.
RACHAEL AKIDI: Ismail Warsame, spoksperson for Colonel Abdullahi Yussuf   

Two volumes. One political indictment. Somalia must learn to hold power accountable.

A WDM editorial

Somalia has never lacked politicians. It has lacked people willing to confront them while they still hold power.

That is the space occupied by Ismail H. Warsame’s two-volume Talking Truth to Power in Undemocratic and Tribal Context: Articles of Impeachment, published July 2020. These volumes do not flatter presidents, reassure ministers, or massage clan sensitivities. They are a political record—years of commentary on Somalia’s difficult attempt to rebuild government after state collapse.

Its central claim is blunt and urgent: power must be questioned—especially when doing so is dangerous.

Articles of Impeachment

The subtitle is intentional. “Articles of Impeachment” is not a literal call for parliamentary trials in every case. It stands for a wider principle: public power should always be subject to public scrutiny.

Too often in Somalia that principle is reversed. Criticize a president and you are asked about your clan. Challenge a minister and you are accused of partisan motives. Expose institutional failure and the response becomes personal, tribal, or factional. The only question that should matter—“Is the criticism true?”—is erased.

That is the political environment these books confront.

Tribal loyalty is not accountability

Somalia cannot build a constitutional state while accepting the unwritten rule that my politician is right because he is mine. That is not democracy; it is clan patronage in government clothing. A corrupt official does not become honest because of clan ties. An unconstitutional decision does not become constitutional because it benefits your faction. Government failure does not become success because criticism is inconvenient.

The republic must come before the politician. The constitution must come before the clan. Truth must come before convenience. That argument runs through Talking Truth to Power.

Why these volumes still matter

Many pieces in these books first appeared on the author’s blog, ismailwarsame.blog, written as events unfolded. That matters because Somalia suffers from extraordinary political amnesia. Yesterday’s villains return tomorrow as democrats. Yesterday’s constitutional arguments are conveniently forgotten. Politicians reverse positions as if no archive exists.

But archives are dangerous: they remember. Reading commentary produced in the moment reveals not reconstructed history but the arguments, warnings, and controversies of that time. These volumes therefore function as more than books: they are part of Somalia’s contemporary political record.

Six years after publication, every reader faces a simple test: take an article from 2020, remove the names, change the date to 2026—how much still rings true? If the answer is “too much,” the indictment is against Somalia’s failure to learn, not against the author.

WDM: No political sacred cows

Warsame Digital Media stands on the same principle. Government is not sacred. Presidents are not sacred. Opposition leaders and Federal Member State leaders are not sacred. Clan personalities are certainly not sacred. The public interest is.

Somalia has had enough praise singers, enough intellectuals who become brave only after presidents leave office, and enough commentators who discover constitutional principles only when their clan loses power. A serious political culture demands something harder: tell the truth when your friends are wrong; defend constitutional government when your opponents benefit from it; question authority while authority can still answer back.

That is talking truth to power. Everything else is public relations.

Get the two-volume set

Ismail H. Warsame
Talking Truth to Power in Undemocratic and Tribal Context: Articles of Impeachment
Volumes One & Two — Published July 2020

Volume One

• Approximately 75,480 words
• Paperback and digital editions
• Amazon paperback identifier: ASIN 164871319X

Volume Two

• Approximately 31,990 words
• Digital edition available through major ebook retailers

The two volumes appear on Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and other platforms. Readers in Puntland may also enquire through Warsame Digital Media about local copies; older contact details published in 2020 should be verified.

Together the books contain more than 107,000 words of political commentary and critical analysis. Don’t buy them for comfortable reading. Read them to argue with them, to challenge the author, and to test the political record. Above all, read with one question in mind: six years on, has Somalia answered the Articles of Impeachment?

The verdict remains open.

WDM — Commentary and Critical Analysis.

Qore: Yusuf Said Hersi
Taariikhda: Agoosto 08, 2026

Waxaa jira arrimo siyaasadeed oo aan lagu fahmi Karin dhacdooyinka maanta oo keliya. Xiriirka Soomaaliya iyo Itoobiya waa mid ka mid ah. Jiilba jiilka ka dambeeya, Itoobiya waxay ilaalisaa aragti ku salaysan danaheeda qaran iyo istraatiijiga Geeska Afrika. Hoggaamiyeyaashu way is beddelaan, laakiin danaha qaran ee muddada dheer la hiigsanayo si fudud uma beddelmaan.

Maanta, baahida Itoobiya u qabto marin badeed waxay dib u soo celisay su’aal muddo dheer taagnayd: Soomaaliya ma leedahay aragti fog oo ay ku ilaalinayso dhulkeeda, badaheeda iyo midnimadeeda?

Itoobiya waa dal aan lahayn xeeb, halka Soomaaliya ay leedahay xeeb dheer oo ku taalla meel ka mid ah goobaha ugu istraatiijisan dunida. Sidaas darted, badda Soomaaliya ma aha oo keliya arrin dhaqaale; waa arrin ku saabsan madaxbannaanida, amniga iyo mustaqbalka qaranka.

Itoobiya waxay xaq u leedahay inay raadiso marin ganacsi iyo xiriir dhaqaale. Laakiin baahida Itoobiya looma beddeli karo xaq ay ku yeelato dhul ama bad Soomaaliyeed. Heshiis ganacsi waa wax kale, tanaasul ku saabsan madaxbannaanida qarankuna waa wax kale.

Xaggee maraysaa himiladii Soomaalidu?

Jiilashii xornimada waxay lahaayeen himilo cad oo ku saabsan Soomaaliweyne. Waxay doonayeen in Soomaalida iyo dhulalkii Soomaalidu deggenayd ay mar uun ka gudbaan xuduudihii gumeysigu sameeyay.

Maanta, jiilasha cusub waxay indhahooda ku arkaan Soomaaliya ka duwan tii ay ku riyoon jireen awoowayaashood: dal kala qeybsan, khilaaf siyaasadeed joogto ah iyo midnimo qaran oo sii daciifaysa.

Haddii jiilku ku koro Soomaaliya kala qoqoban, lama yaabi karo haddii himiladii midnimada Soomaaliyeed ay jiilba jiilka ka dambeeya sii luminayso.

Taasi waa khatarta ugu weyn.

Soomaaliya haddii ay daciifto, kuwo kale ayaa qorsheynaya mustaqbalkeeda

Ma aha in dhibaato kasta oo Soomaaliya haysata lagu eedeeyo shisheeye. Soomaalidu waxay mas’uuliyad weyn ku leedahay xaaladda ay maanta ku jirto. Laakiin sidoo kale waa in la fahmaa in dal daciif ah oo ku yaalla meel istraatiiji ah uu mar walba soo jiito dano dibadeed.

Soomaaliya waxay leedahay bad, kheyraad iyo goob juqraafiyeed oo dunidu danaynayso. Haddii Soomaalidu aysan yeelan qorshe qaran oo fog, kuwa kale ayaa qoesheyn doona mustaqbalka ay iyagu rabaan.

Xasan Sheekh iyo mas’uuliyadda taariikhiga ah

Madaxweyne Xasan Sheekh Maxamuud wuxuu hoggaaminayaa Soomaaliya xilli xasaasi ah. Waxaa horyaalla su’aal ka weyn muddo-xileedkiisa: Soomaaliya noocee ah ayuu uga tagayaa jiilka soo socda?

Haddii khilaafaadka gudaha, kala fogaanshaha siyaasadeed iyo daciifnimada dowladda dhexe ay sii socdaan, waxaa jirta khatar ah in jiilka dambe ay u arkaan kala qoqobka Soomaaliya wax caadi ah.

Madaxweyne wuxuu xil hayaa muddo kooban, laakiin go’aanadiisu waxay saameyn karaan qaranka muddo tobannaan sano ah.

Sidaas darted, Soomaaliya waxay u baahan tahay siyaasad ka sarreysa madaxweyne, xisbi iyo maamul-goboleed. Waxay u baahan tahay aragti qaran oo ku saabsan midnimada, badda, dhulka, kheyraadka iyo xiriirka dalalka deriska ah.

Ugu dambeyn, su’aashu ma aha oo keliya waxa Itoobiya rabto.

Su’aashu waa: Soomaaliya maxay rabtaa, yaase diyaar u ah inuu u dagaallamo aragtidaas siyaasadda, diblomaasiyadda iyo dowladnimada?

Jiilashii hore waxay inoo reebeen himilo.

Jiilka maanta waxaa laga rabaa inuu ilaaliyo waxa uu ka dhaxlay.

Jiilasha berri waxay xukumi doonaan waxa aan maanta sameyno.

Yusuf Said Hersi
Yusufsicid37@gmail.com

A WDM Editorial

There is an uncomfortable truth Puntland must confront: a state cannot claim sovereignty while politicians, businessmen, clan figures and political factions maintain private arsenals and battle wagons inside their residences and garages.

This is not merely a security problem. It is a question of whether Puntland intends to remain a state governed by institutions or gradually become a collection of armed neighbourhoods negotiating with one another through gun barrels.

And nowhere is the contradiction more painful than in Mudug.

Mudug Has Defended Puntland — It Must Not Be Consumed by Revenge

The people of Mudug have historically been among the most gallant defenders of Puntland. When Puntland’s security has been threatened, Mudug communities have repeatedly supplied courage, manpower and sacrifice.

That history deserves recognition.

But precisely because of that distinguished record, the continuing cycle of sub-clan confrontation, revenge killings and armed tension in Galkayo is intolerable.

Galkayo cannot remain permanently suspended between civilisation and the battlefield.

A murder produces retaliation. Retaliation produces another funeral. Another funeral produces another armed mobilisation. Then elders negotiate temporary calm while armed men keep their weapons and wait for the next incident.

That is not law and order.

That is managed anarchy.

The cycle must end.

President Said Abdullahi Deni’s current working visit to Mudug should therefore be about more than meetings, receptions and speeches. It should clarify something fundamental:

Who governs Galkayo — the Puntland State or armed sub-clans?

There cannot be two answers.

The Law Cannot Stop at Galkayo

But Puntland authorities must resist the temptation to treat Galkayo as though it were the state’s only security problem.

It isn’t.

Armed groups and privately controlled militias remain elsewhere, including around Carmo and Garowe. Some operate openly under clan loyalties. Others dress themselves in the more respectable language of “opposition.”, and others as “Federal Troops.”

Opposition to President Deni is legitimate.

Opposition politics is legitimate.

Criticism of the Puntland Government is legitimate.

Private armies are not.

Nor should political opposition become camouflage for armed groups allegedly cultivating relationships with political interests associated with the Banadir-based administration of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

If you oppose Deni, oppose him politically.

Write against him. Organise against him. Campaign against him. Defeat his policies in Parliament. Challenge his government in court. Mobilise voters.

But do not park and hide technicals in your house garages and call yourself a democrat.

Garowe’s Battle-Wagon Culture Must End

Perhaps the most embarrassing manifestation of this problem exists in the capital itself.

There are politicians, influential residents and businessmen in Garowe reportedly keeping armed battle wagons at their residences.

Why?

Garowe is the capital of Puntland State, not an assembly point for private armies.

A businessman does not need a battle wagon.

A politician does not need a battle wagon.

An elder does not need a battle wagon.

A former official does not need a battle wagon.

A citizen living under a functioning government should not require a private military capability capable of confronting the police.

Once individuals acquire such firepower, their relationship with the state changes. They cease being merely citizens protected by law and begin possessing the means to negotiate with the state through force.

That is how governmental authority slowly disappears.

Today it is one technical.

Tomorrow five.

Then twenty.

Eventually the government itself must negotiate before entering neighbourhoods supposedly under its jurisdiction.

Puntland must never reach that point.

No Selective Disarmament

There is another principle that matters enormously.

Disarmament cannot be political.

The government cannot confiscate weapons from its opponents while ignoring equally armed supporters. It cannot dismantle one sub-clan militia while tolerating another because its commanders happen to enjoy political connections.

That would not establish law and order. It would simply redistribute armed power.

The principle must therefore be brutally simple:

One state. One security authority. One law.

From Galkayo to Garowe, Carmo to Bosaso, no politician, businessman, clan elder, opposition figure or government supporter should operate a private armed formation capable of challenging the constitutional security forces.

And where crimes have been committed, disarmament alone is insufficient.

Murder must go before the courts.

Political violence must go before the courts.

Instigation of armed violence must go before the courts.

Those who organise illegal armed groups must face the law.

Otherwise Puntland merely confiscates yesterday’s weapons while manufacturing tomorrow’s gunmen.

The Writing Is on the Wall

Those still maintaining sub-clan militias or armed political formations should understand what Puntland’s recent security confrontations ought to have demonstrated.

The era of competing armed centres of authority must end.

That message applies equally to government supporters and opponents.

No individual political grievance gives anyone the right to establish an alternative security structure. No disagreement with Garowe transforms a private militia into a constitutional institution. And no relationship with political actors in Mogadishu should provide protection for activities that destabilise Puntland.

If outside political interests wish to compete in Puntland, let them compete through ideas and constitutional politics.

Puntland cannot become somebody else’s proxy battlefield.

Puntland Must Become a Peaceful Country

The objective is not militarisation.

It is precisely the opposite.

Puntland must become a peaceful country where ordinary people do not have to calculate which sub-clan controls which checkpoint, which politician owns which technical, or whose militia might mobilise tonight.

A shopkeeper should worry about customers, not crossfire.

A student should carry books, not ammunition.

A politician should carry arguments, not machine guns.

And a businessman should invest in trucks carrying merchandise — not battle wagons carrying gunmen.

Mudug’s historic gallantry should be channelled into defending Puntland, not settling neighbourhood revenge.

Garowe’s political class should compete for public confidence, not firepower.

Carmo should belong to the state and its citizens, not armed factions.

And Puntland’s government must understand the other half of this bargain: once it demands civilian obedience to law, the government itself must submit absolutely to law.

No arbitrary arrests. No collective punishment. No clan profiling. No political score-settling disguised as security operations. Disarmament must be lawful, impartial and subject to judicial accountability.

That is the difference between restoring the state and merely empowering another armed faction.

Puntland has spent twenty-eight years building institutions out of the ruins of Somali state collapse. It should know better than almost anywhere else in Somalia what happens when private guns become stronger than public institutions.

The lesson was purchased with blood.

There is no reason to purchase it twice.

Clear the cities of illegal battle wagons.
Disband private militias.
Prosecute criminal violence.
Protect legitimate political opposition.
Apply the same law to friend and foe.

Puntland must belong to its citizens — not to whoever happens to own the biggest gun.

WDM — Commentary and Critical Analysis

A WDM Editorial

The resignation of Professor Jason Arday from the University of Cambridge has reignited one of the most contentious debates in modern academia: where should the line be drawn between legitimate scrutiny, academic integrity, and politically motivated persecution? The controversy reaches far beyond one individual. It touches the credibility of universities, the integrity of scholarship, the politics of race, and the public’s confidence in academic institutions. Cambridge launched an investigation after receiving new information relating to allegations of plagiarism, academic qualifications, honorary appointments, and aspects of Arday’s public biography. Arday subsequently resigned while denying wrongdoing and describing the campaign against him as deeply damaging. A University of Cambridge spokesperson stated that the institution takes all allegations of academic misconduct seriously and that any concerns raised are assessed through established procedures designed to ensure fairness, consistency, and academic integrity. The University has also emphasised that such processes are evidence-led and that conclusions are reached only after careful review of the available material.

Precisely because so much is at stake, the debate demands rigorous evidence rather than rhetorical flourish. Fair questions deserve fair answers—but they also require sound reasoning.

There is a serious question at the heart of this affair: are Black academics subjected to a level of scrutiny that others escape? That question deserves investigation, not dismissal. Yet even the strongest cause can be weakened by weak reasoning. Justice cannot be defended by logical shortcuts.

The first mistake made by many defenders is the claim that because every scholar builds upon the work of predecessors, allegations of plagiarism are somehow meaningless. That argument collapses under even modest scrutiny.

Scholarship has never prohibited intellectual influence. Quite the opposite. Every dissertation, journal article, and monograph stands upon earlier research. But academia has always distinguished influence from appropriation. Influence is acknowledged. Sources are cited. Direct quotations are identified. Ideas borrowed from earlier scholars are properly attributed. That is the ethical foundation of intellectual life.

Plagiarism is not the existence of similarity. It is the concealment or misrepresentation of borrowed work.

A similarity report is therefore not a conviction. It is merely the beginning of an inquiry. Universities must determine whether attribution was sufficient, whether the overlap is significant, whether disciplinary conventions were observed, and whether any shortcomings arose from deliberate deception, negligence, or honest error. Liverpool John Moores University reportedly concluded that earlier concerns relating to Arday’s doctoral work reflected honest and reasonable error rather than deliberate misconduct—a finding that deserves as much attention as the allegations themselves.

Reducing the issue to “everyone copies” does not defend scholarship. It weakens it.

Nor was Cambridge’s inquiry confined to plagiarism. The University stated that it had received new information concerning Arday’s academic qualifications and honorary appointments, while media reporting also examined aspects of his public biography, including fundraising and endurance-running claims. Whether those allegations ultimately prove well-founded is precisely what due process is intended to determine. Cambridge has reiterated that it does not comment on ongoing individual cases in detail, but that its processes are designed to uphold both academic standards and procedural fairness.

The stronger question concerns proportionality.

Was Professor Arday subjected to exceptional scrutiny because he became one of Britain’s most prominent Black academics? Or did the prominence of the allegations make institutional investigation unavoidable? Neither question can be answered by speculation alone.

Context matters.

The initial allegations emerged from philosopher Nathan Cofnas, whose criticism of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies is well known. That background is relevant in assessing the political environment in which the controversy unfolded. Yet motive alone neither proves nor disproves the allegations. Likewise, textual similarity alone neither establishes plagiarism nor intentional misconduct. Responsible analysis must distinguish between overlap, attribution, significance, intent, institutional procedure, and public accountability.

Another weakness lies in vague claims of relentless hostile commentary. If critics argue that Arday became the target of racially motivated attacks, they should identify the publications, commentators, and statements involved. Serious allegations require serious documentation. Evidence persuades. Generalisations do not.

None of this diminishes the broader concern. Black academics have long argued that they often face heightened scrutiny while simultaneously being expected to symbolize institutional progress. That possibility deserves careful examination. Universities committed to equality should ensure that standards are applied consistently, neither lowering expectations nor imposing higher burdens because of race or politics.

Equality cannot mean immunity from scrutiny.

Nor can academic integrity become a weapon in ideological conflict.

Justice requires consistency.

The Arday affair therefore presents two legitimate questions. First, did Cambridge investigate the allegations fairly and proportionately? Second, are Black scholars sometimes subjected to disproportionate scrutiny because they become symbols within wider cultural debates?

Both questions deserve rigorous examination.

Neither is answered by claiming that all scholarship is derivative.

The integrity of knowledge depends not upon pretending originality emerges from nowhere, but upon honestly acknowledging where influence ends and originality begins. Universities must defend that principle without fear or favour. They must resist ideological pressure from every direction while ensuring that neither race nor politics determines whose work is examined and whose is ignored.

That is the standard worthy of Cambridge.

More importantly, it is the standard worthy of justice.

By WDM Editorial Board

Puntland cannot claim victory over insecurity while armed groups still roam its cities and revenge killings continue to dictate justice. Stability is not achieved by press conferences, temporary deployments, or political speeches. It is achieved when the state alone possesses the legitimate monopoly on force.
The reality is uncomfortable. Galkayo, Bosaso, Qardho, and even the capital, Garowe, still contain pockets of instability capable of igniting into armed confrontation with little warning. Clan-based armed groups, politically connected militias, and cycles of revenge violence remain a direct challenge to constitutional authority. Every day they remain untouched is another day the authority of the state is diminished.
Half measures are no longer enough.
Puntland’s government must move beyond warnings and demonstrate that the law applies equally to everyone—whether the suspect carries a government title, enjoys clan protection, or commands an armed following. Selective enforcement is not justice; it is an invitation to the next crisis.
The tragedy is not merely that violence occurs. The greater tragedy is that too often it ends without accountability. Families bury their dead, communities mourn, politicians issue statements, and then silence descends until the next shooting. That cycle has become dangerously familiar.
Law and order cannot coexist with parallel armed structures. Every illegal weapon, every unauthorized militia, and every individual inciting political violence must face the full force of the courts—not negotiations, not political bargains, and not temporary compromises.
Disarmament is not optional. It is the foundation of statehood.
Puntland has built a reputation over nearly three decades as Somalia’s most enduring federal state. That reputation will not be preserved by history alone. It must be defended every day through disciplined institutions, impartial justice, and unwavering enforcement of the law.
The message should therefore be unmistakable: surrender illegal weapons, dissolve unauthorized armed groups, end revenge killings, and prosecute those who organize or incite political violence. Human rights must be respected throughout, but respect for human rights does not require surrendering the rule of law. On the contrary, the rule of law is what protects those rights.
A government that hesitates before armed groups invites anarchy. A government that enforces the law fairly earns legitimacy.
Puntland has reached that moment of choice.
It must choose the rule of law over the rule of the gun.

Unconfirmed Reports: PSF Remnants Allegedly Seeking New Bases in SSC Territory

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a developing story based on unconfirmed reports. Independent verification is still pending.

If these reports prove accurate, they would signal that remnants of the PSF are attempting to regroup rather than disband by relocating their operational bases in Bosaso and Qarho into SSC-controlled territory. Such a move would raise serious questions about the group’s intentions and whether the recent security operations in Puntland have merely dispersed, rather than dismantled, the organization.

Any attempt to establish armed bases outside Puntland’s constitutional security framework risks expanding instability beyond its original theatre and complicating an already fragile political and security landscape.

The critical question is no longer whether the recent confrontation has ended, but whether it is entering a new phase.

WDM will continue to monitor developments and update readers as independently verified information becomes available.

A WDM Editorial

Disarm the Clan Militias. End Political Violence. Restore the Rule of Law.

A state cannot coexist with private armies.
It is as simple as that.
Every time a political disagreement in Puntland is settled with armed mobilization instead of constitutional process, the state loses a little more of its authority. Every revenge killing carried out in the name of clan honour, every politically sponsored militia, and every illegal gunman patrolling our towns chips away at nearly three decades of institution-building.
Enough.
Garowe was built to be the capital of a constitutional state—not a stage for armed political intimidation. Bosaso should be known for commerce, not convoys of gunmen. Galkayo has already buried too many of its sons and daughters to clan revenge. Qardho and every Puntland town deserve schools, investment, and opportunity—not fear, checkpoints, and technicals mounted with heavy weapons.
Let us stop deceiving ourselves.
There is no such thing as a “constitutional militia.”
There is no such thing as a “good armed group.”
And there is certainly no political objective noble enough to justify terrorizing civilians.
Those who reach for the gun after losing the political argument have already admitted they have lost the constitutional one.
The tragedy is that many who now challenge Puntland through violence contributed nothing to building it. Puntland was not created by militias. It was founded in 1998 through dialogue, reconciliation, sacrifice, and a deliberate rejection of the warlordism that destroyed Somalia after 1991.
Its founders understood a timeless principle: a government that does not control the legitimate use of force is not truly governing.
The late President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed understood this better than most. Agree or disagree with aspects of his leadership, he never confused state authority with militia authority. He understood that a state cannot negotiate its sovereignty with armed factions. The Constitution either governs everyone, or eventually it governs no one.
That lesson has never been more relevant.
Today, Puntland faces a growing danger—not only from terrorists, but from the normalization of politically motivated violence, clan revenge, and illegal armed groups operating outside constitutional authority. Every politician who quietly encourages militias for short-term political advantage is gambling with Puntland’s long-term survival.
But there is another truth that deserves equal attention.
The problem is no longer only the existence of militias. It is also the absence of justice.
Puntland has yet to demonstrate that political violence carries real legal consequences.
Nearly 38 people were killed in political violence in Garowe not long ago, yet the public has not seen those responsible—or those accused of organizing, financing, or instigating that violence—held accountable before independent courts of law. No transparent prosecutions. No public trials. No judicial closure worthy of a constitutional state.
That silence is dangerous.
Impunity is the oxygen of political violence.
When those who organize bloodshed are not brought before the courts, others draw the obvious conclusion: violence is survivable, accountability is optional, and the law is negotiable.
Nothing could be more destructive to public confidence.
Justice delayed is not merely justice denied.
In Puntland, justice ignored becomes an invitation to the next gunfight.
This is where the Puntland authorities face their greatest constitutional test.
Security operations alone are not enough. Arrests alone are not enough. Public statements alone are not enough.
The law must complete the journey.
Those against whom there is sufficient credible evidence of committing, organizing, financing, or inciting political violence must be investigated professionally, prosecuted independently, and tried fairly before competent courts. No sacred cows. No political favourites. No clan exemptions.
The law must become stronger than the gun.
Yet in doing so, Puntland must never abandon the principles that distinguish a constitutional state from those who seek to undermine it. Every security operation must respect human rights. Civilians must be protected. Due process must be guaranteed. Collective punishment has no place in Puntland. Justice must be firm, but it must also be lawful.
That is not a weakness.
That is civilization.
The founders of Puntland did not sacrifice to replace one armed faction with another. They built institutions so future generations would no longer have to live at the mercy of men carrying guns outside the law.
Puntland now faces a defining choice.
Either it restores the rule of law, disarms every illegal militia, prosecutes political violence without fear or favour, and reaffirms the state’s exclusive authority over the use of force—
Or it continues down the road where every political disagreement is settled by armed mobilization, every killing goes unanswered, and every act of impunity plants the seed of the next conflict.
The choice should not be difficult.
One Constitution.
One government.
One chain of command.
One system of justice.
Zero tolerance for political violence.
The gun did not build Puntland.
The gun must never be allowed to bury it.

Reported by Abdilatif Ahmed

“The Puntland Diaspora Community in the United Kingdom (UK) expresses its deep concern regarding the escalating security situation and strongly condemns what it views as actions by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the Federal Government of Somalia that are increasing military tensions and instability affecting Puntland.

According to information received by the Community, additional troops, heavy weapons, and military equipment have reportedly been deployed toward Galkacyo. The Community considers these developments a serious escalation that threatens peace, security, social stability, and national unity, while increasing the risk of armed confrontation with potentially severe political, humanitarian, and security consequences.

The Community believes that military mobilisation represents a departure from dialogue, constitutional governance, and peaceful dispute resolution. At a time when Somalia requires unity, reconciliation, and cooperation to address national challenges, the use of military force to resolve political disagreements risks deepening divisions, weakening institutions, and undermining public trust.

The Puntland Diaspora Community strongly condemns what it views as the use of state military resources and authority to apply political pressure on Puntland. Political and constitutional disputes must be resolved through dialogue, negotiation, mutual respect, and adherence to federal principles, democracy, constitutional order, and the rule of law—not through confrontation or coercion.

The Community warns that continued military escalation around Galkacyo could endanger civilian lives, increase humanitarian risks, cause displacement, disrupt economic activity, and further weaken political stability in Puntland and Somalia as a whole.

The Puntland Diaspora Community firmly maintains that political disagreements must never be resolved through force or military threats. All disputes must be addressed through genuine dialogue, peaceful engagement, and constitutional processes.

Therefore, the Puntland Diaspora Community in the United Kingdom calls for:

The immediate cessation of military activities that could further escalate tensions in Galkacyo and Puntland.

A renewed commitment by all political leaders to peaceful dialogue, constitutional processes, and sustainable solutions.

Full respect for the constitutional rights, security, and autonomy of Federal Member States.

Protection of civilians, public infrastructure, and humanitarian access in accordance with international principles.

Greater involvement by regional and international partners in supporting mediation and de-escalation efforts.

The Community believes that continued escalation risks weakening Somalia’s institutions, undermining national unity, and diverting resources from essential priorities, including security, economic recovery, and democratic development. Lasting peace and stability can only be achieved through inclusive governance, accountability, reconciliation, and genuine political dialogue.

The Puntland Diaspora Community therefore calls upon President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the Federal Government of Somalia to exercise restraint and avoid any actions that may further increase tensions with Puntland. Priority must be given to constructive dialogue, protection of civilians, preservation of peace, and strengthening Somalia’s federal institutions.

The Puntland Diaspora Community in the United Kingdom reaffirms its commitment to a peaceful, united, democratic, and federal Somalia based on justice, constitutional governance, mutual respect, and the rule of law. The Somali people deserve responsible leadership that prioritises national interests, resolves disputes through dialogue, and protects the future and wellbeing of all citizens.”

Translated from Somali by WDM Desk

Mogadishu, August 4th, 2026

The Future Somalia Council strongly condemns the weapons and forces being deployed to the city of Galkacyo by Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud, the President whose term has expired, actions that have created a climate of conflict and pose a serious threat to peace, stability, and the coexistence of the people living in the Galmudug and Puntland regions.
Today’s fighting, which resulted from weapons transported into the Galkacyo district, is an example of the danger that can arise from the irresponsibility and misguided ambitions of the President whose term has expired, who is taking increasingly dangerous steps against the country, its people, and Somali statehood with each passing day.
The city of Galkacyo has been recovering over the past ten years from conflicts and clan warfare, yet it is unfortunate that the President whose term has expired is igniting conflict in the city and creating renewed insecurity and instability.
It is astonishing that at a time when the terrorist group Al-Shabaab is regaining areas that were liberated at great cost of bloodshed, the President whose term has expired is using the weapons and forces meant to liberate the country to instead stir up tensions in peaceful areas.
Finally, the Future Somalia Council calls on regional administrations, traditional elders, religious scholars, intellectuals, and civil society to work together for peace and stability, and to jointly prevent the conflict that the President whose term has expired is inciting in Galkacyo.

A WDM Editorial
A government’s priorities are revealed not by its speeches, but by where it commits its soldiers, its money, and its political energy. Today, Somalia faces an uncomfortable question: why does a Federal Government whose constitutional mandate expired months ago appear more determined to escalate tensions in Galkayo than to liberate Somali territory still occupied by al-Shabaab?
Galkayo has suffered enough.
It is a city burdened by divided administration, decades of unresolved clan grievances, contested jurisdiction, recurring insecurity, and the pressures of displacement. It should be a place where federal institutions cooperate to preserve stability—not another arena for political confrontation.
Yet allegations continue to emerge that federal-aligned actors are encouraging militia mobilization around Galkayo instead of concentrating national efforts against the insurgency that continues to occupy Somali soil.
The contrast could hardly be sharper.
Adan Yabaal, barely 200 kilometres from Mogadishu, was celebrated as one of the Somali National Army’s major victories in 2022. Yet al-Shabaab recaptured the strategic town in April 2025, and it remains outside government control. That is not a peripheral setback. It is a reminder that Somalia’s principal battlefield remains unfinished.
Then there is Jilib—al-Shabaab’s long-standing operational headquarters and self-declared capital since 2014. Despite years of military campaigns, international support, airstrikes, and repeated offensives, the movement’s political and military nerve centre remains intact. More than a decade later, the federal government has still not reclaimed the insurgency’s capital.
Instead, an altogether different pattern appears to be emerging.
South West State has experienced sustained federal intervention following disputes over regional authority. Galmudug now finds itself in open political tension with Villa Somalia. And Galkayo, sitting on the sensitive boundary between Puntland and Galmudug, increasingly risks becoming the next flashpoint.
Whether every allegation proves accurate or not, the perception itself is deeply damaging. Federalism cannot survive if Federal Member States come to believe that political independence invites pressure while constitutional cooperation receives intimidation.
The irony is particularly striking because the Federal Government itself operates under a constitutional cloud. Its constitutional mandate expired months ago, yet instead of prioritizing constitutional consensus, national reconciliation, and the recovery of territory held by terrorists, it appears increasingly preoccupied with political confrontation against Federal Member States. A government whose own constitutional legitimacy is disputed should exercise restraint—not open new political and military fronts.
Former Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke recently warned that a conflict in Galkayo would divert precious military resources from the fight against al-Shabaab and ISIS. On that point, he is entirely correct. Somalia cannot afford another internal front while terrorists continue to occupy strategic territory.
But his warning leaves unanswered the most important question: who is creating the conditions for such a conflict?
Warning against war while remaining silent on those whom critics accuse of orchestrating the political and military tensions around Galkayo is an incomplete analysis. If federal-aligned actors are contributing to militia mobilization and political destabilization, then condemning the consequences without confronting their alleged role treats the symptoms while ignoring the disease.
The Provisional Constitution did not establish federalism so that Mogadishu could politically discipline Federal Member States. It established federalism to disperse power, reduce conflict, and unite Somali institutions against common national enemies.
That enemy is not Puntland.
That enemy is not Galkayo.
That enemy is al-Shabaab.
If a Federal Government whose constitutional mandate expired months ago still possesses the troops, resources, and political determination to project force, those assets should first be directed toward liberating Adan Yabaal, reclaiming Jilib, and dismantling al-Shabaab’s remaining territorial sanctuary. Those are the battles that matter. Those are the victories the Somali people have waited for.
Manufacturing political crises in areas outside the Federal Government’s effective administration does not strengthen the Somali state. It weakens federalism, diverts scarce security resources, and risks opening another front in a country already fighting for its survival. More paradoxically, it undermines the very federal system that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has repeatedly presented as a cornerstone of his government’s political agenda. A strategy that erodes the constitutional autonomy, mutual trust, and institutional integrity of the Federal Member States ultimately weakens the Union it claims to defend.
History will not judge leaders by how effectively they confronted fellow Somalis. It will judge them by whether they defended the Constitution, respected the limits of their mandate, and liberated the territory still occupied by terrorists.
Somalia does not need another constitutional crisis.
It does not need another federal confrontation.
It needs Adan Yabaal back.
It needs Jilib back.
It needs a government that fights al-Shabaab—not federalism.

Translated from Somali by WDM Desk

Garowe, Puntland — Date: 4 August 2026
The Puntland Government condemns the outgoing Federal Government of Somalia for deploying troops and weapons into areas under Puntland’s administration. Today, 4 August 2026, the Federal Government offloaded additional weapons in Galkacyo city — specifically on the Galmudug side — intending to move them into the Puntland side, but was blocked by the security forces and residents of the Galmudug administration. This led to a confrontation that caused casualties.
The Puntland Government commends the Galmudug administration, its forces, and its public for preventing the insecurity being driven by the Federal Government in Mudug region, and for stopping weapons and troops from being moved through the area in a way that would endanger the security of Puntland’s territories.
Puntland and Galmudug share good neighborliness, social coexistence, and long-standing administrative cooperation. Safeguarding security and overall stability across both administrations’ areas is a shared responsibility of both sides.
The Puntland Government wishes to inform the Somali people and the international community that the former President of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, is stoking conflict in Mudug region — particularly in Galkacyo city — where the people and the sister governments of Puntland and Galmudug have coexisted peacefully. Any insecurity resulting from this action is therefore the responsibility of the President whose term has expired.
Finally, the Puntland Government calls on the people of Puntland to remain vigilant against the security interference being carried out by the Federal Government in Puntland’s territories, and to stand united against anything that could harm Puntland’s statehood, security, and stability.
—–
Office of Communications, Presidency of Puntland State (DPL)

By A M Yusuf (Educator and socio-political analyst based in London, UK)

Former Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke’s recent statement on X — “Galkacyo is not Calmiskaad” — is technically correct but politically misleading. The line was posted as a warning against Puntland “waging a war of aggression against fellow Puntland Forces,” a reference to the standoff between Puntland’s government and the Puntland Security Force (PSF) militia. By invoking Calmiskaad in the same breath, Sharmarke implies a false equivalence: that confronting an unlawful armed faction is comparable to confronting terrorists, and that neither deserves the state’s resolve.
No one disputes that Galkacyo is not Calmiskaad. But the comparison obscures what Puntland actually achieved there. The Calmiskaad (Cal-Miskaad) mountains became the entrenched stronghold of ISIS-Somalia under Abdulkadir Mumin, and since Operation Hilaac began in late 2024, Puntland’s Counter-Terrorism Forces — with US and UAE support — have fought a costly, multi-phase campaign to clear it, at real cost in soldiers’ lives. That campaign has protected not just Puntland but Gulf of Aden shipping lanes and regional stability more broadly, often with little tangible backing from Mogadishu.
The PSF dispute is a different matter, and conflating it with Calmiskaad only muddies the picture. Puntland’s presidency has declared the PSF outside its official command structure — a legacy of the 2021 Bosaso clashes that were only defused through elder-led mediation. A state cannot indefinitely tolerate an armed faction operating outside its chain of command; the alternative is a fragmented security architecture that serves no one. Two further threads are tangled into the same moment but are not the same dispute: Puntland’s objection to the federal government’s appointment of Gen. Jimale Takar as commander of the 54th Division, and Puntland’s separate warning to Galmudug against allowing troop and weapons movements through its territory toward Puntland-administered areas. Treating all three — PSF, the federal appointment, and Galmudug — as a single undifferentiated “war of aggression” collapses distinct issues into one and casts the party asserting lawful authority as the aggressor.
There is a history worth recalling here. Sharmarke served as Prime Minister under President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s first administration (December 2014–March 2017), the period when Puntland and Galmudug forces clashed repeatedly over Galkacyo — a city long divided between Puntland- and Galmudug-administered zones. Many in Puntland believed Mogadishu treated that crisis as a political opportunity rather than a matter requiring impartial mediation. That memory shapes how his intervention now reads: less a neutral call for restraint, more a continuation of old alignments. It brings to mind the Somali proverb “Fiqi tolkii kama janno tago” — a cleric does not abandon his own even at heaven’s gate.
The broader concern in Puntland and Jubbaland is that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is working to bring the federal member states under more centrally compliant leadership, as many perceive has already happened in South West State and Hirshabelle, with similar ambitions suspected toward Galmudug. Whether or not that reading is entirely fair, it is widely held — and it is why politicians from Puntland or Jubbaland seen as aiding efforts to erode their states’ constitutional authority may find favor in Mogadishu in the short term, but risk lasting damage to their standing at home.

Editor’s Note:  This narrative provides a firsthand account of the political betrayal and internal collapse of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) while operating under Ethiopian protection in 1985. The author, a former secretariat director, details how he drafted a warning letter regarding a conspiracy to assassinate leader Abdullahi Yusuf, which ultimately served as a catalyst for Yusuf’s arrest by the Derg regime. Through descriptions of espionage activities and document forgery at a state press, the source illustrates how Ethiopia manipulated Somali rebel factions to serve its own imperial interests. The text highlights the inherent dangers of liberation movements relying on foreign powers, as the quest for autonomy turned allies into prisoners. Ultimately, these events are framed as a foundational lesson in the cynical nature of regional geopolitics, which deeply influenced Yusuf’s future approach to governance.

—-

 October 19, 2025 

WARSAME DIGITAL MEDIA (WDM)
Critical Analysis, History, and Political Commentary

By Ismail H. Warsame

The Day Suspicion Became Survival

It was one of those mornings in Addis Ababa in early 1985 when the SSDF Secretariat Office felt unusually tense. The war against tyranny was being waged not only in the field but also in the corridors of intrigue. Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the Chairman of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), and his close associate Abdullahi Mohamed Hassan — known in the Front as Abdullahi Faash, who died in Derg jail presumably under torture— walked into the Secretariat office where I worked as director. Their faces betrayed a mixture of defiance and dread.

They asked me to draft a letter. It was to be addressed to the Ethiopian External Research Department, the counter-intelligence branch of the Ministry of Public Security then liaising with the SSDF. The contents were explosive: evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate Abdullahi Yusuf. The plot, they claimed, involved none other than an Ethiopian intelligence officer, the late Ahmed Mohamed Silaanyo, then Chairman of the Somali National Movement (SNM), and Amina Ahmed Warsame Nur Godane, the wife of SSDF Executive Secretary Abdirahman Aydeed Dhadhable.

That letter would later become a piece of political dynamite — a prelude to Abdullahi Yusuf’s arrest by Mengistu’s Derg regime.

The Anatomy of a Conspiracy

At the time, relations between Abdullahi Yusuf and the Derg government were deteriorating rapidly. Once the favored ally of Addis Ababa, Yusuf had become an irritant — a Somali nationalist who refused to bend entirely to Ethiopian manipulation. The Derg wanted obedience; Yusuf demanded sovereignty.

The alleged assassination plot was not merely about eliminating a man. It was about dismantling a movement. The SSDF represented the first organized Somali resistance against the dictatorship of Siad Barre, but it operated within Ethiopia — a state with its own imperial ambitions over Somali territories. The Derg’s counter-intelligence machinery was notorious for playing double games: nurturing Somali rebels on one hand, neutralizing their leaders on the other.

By bringing in figures like Silaanyo — then leading SNM — and exploiting internal SSDF fissures through figures such as Fadumo Nur Godane, Ethiopia’s intelligence apparatus seemed to be orchestrating a divide, discredit, and destroy campaign.

The Drafting of the Letter

I wrote the letter as requested, my pen trembling over the typewriter keys. It was to be signed by Abdullahi Yusuf himself. The letter outlined the conspiracy, the names involved, and the imminent threat to his life.

When I personally delivered it to the Ministry of Public Security, an officer — with the cold curiosity of a spy — asked me, “What is in this letter?”

I simply replied: “I don’t know.”

In truth, I knew every word of it. But in a city where truth could be fatal, ignorance was the only shield.

That single statement may have saved my life.

The Press, the Proofs, and the Peril

Outside political intrigue, my other duty was more mundane — proofreading Midnimo, SSDF’s quarterly magazine published in English. This was done at Burhan Selam Press, the largest print house in Ethiopia. It was a delicate task, but even the world of printing was not immune to espionage.

One day, as I worked on the English-language proofs, Ethiopian technicians asked me to examine official Somali documents — driver’s licenses, postal stamps, and auto circulation permits. They appeared to be “studying” these documents, but it soon became evident that they were engaged in forging Somali government documents — reproducing official seals and designs for intelligence purposes.

That was when I realized the abyss I was standing over: I was in a room where the machinery of forgery and deception operated under the guise of “printing.” Shortly thereafter, I was quietly told never to enter that room again.

They feared I had seen too much.

I left that building with the haunting awareness that even paper could be a weapon — a tool of political warfare and infiltration.

The Aftermath: Arrest and Silence

Not long after that letter reached the Ministry, Abdullahi Yusuf was arrested by the Derg regime. The very government that once sheltered him turned against him. The conspiracy he warned about may have accelerated his downfall, or perhaps it was used as a convenient pretext to silence him.

The Derg had no patience for Somali independence of mind, even among its supposed allies. SSDF was tolerated only as long as it served Ethiopian interests. The moment Abdullahi Yusuf asserted autonomy, he became expendable.

His arrest sent shockwaves across SSDF ranks and across the world. The Front fractured; trust evaporated. The movement that once symbolized Somali unity against dictatorship was now consumed by internal suspicion and Ethiopian manipulation.

The Lesson in Betrayal

That episode was more than an assassination attempt — it was a defining lesson in political betrayal under foreign shadow. Ethiopia’s involvement with Somali resistance movements was never altruistic; it was always transactional, driven by its own national calculus.

The tragedy of SSDF lies not just in external manipulation but in how easily Somali movements allowed themselves to become arenas for foreign games.

Abdullahi Yusuf survived the assassination plot and the Derg’s prison — but the scars of that era marked him for life. When he later returned to lead Puntland and eventually Somalia, he did so with a hardened realism born from betrayal and captivity.

—

WDM Verdict

The assassination attempt against Abdullahi Yusuf was real — not in the cinematic sense of bullets and bombs, but in the political sense of premeditated elimination through intrigue, isolation, and imprisonment.

It revealed the true nature of the SSDF–Ethiopia relationship: one of convenience, control, and calculated betrayal. It exposed how revolutionary movements, when hosted by foreign powers, inevitably become hostages to foreign agendas.

And it showed that in the shadow politics of the Horn of Africa, truth is never safe — even in a letter.

—

Warsame Digital Media (WDM) — speaking truth to power, documenting history without fear or favour.

By Abdilatif Ahmed

Talk of a deeper, longer-term security partnership between Puntland and the United States, potentially involving an expanded American footprint in Bosaso, would mark one of the more consequential developments in the Horn of Africa’s recent security landscape. It is worth noting this is not a cooperation being built from scratch: U.S. forces have already struck ISIS-Somalia targets near Bosaso repeatedly since early 2025, AFRICOM has acknowledged operating in the area, and the UAE has maintained a substantial security and port-infrastructure presence in the city since 2017. What is being discussed, then, is less the birth of a partnership than its formalization and expansion — with all the opportunity and complexity that implies.
A Longer History Than It Appears
This cooperation also has deeper roots than the current Bosaso discussion suggests. Puntland and the United States have worked together on security matters since close to the state’s founding in 1998: in 2001, under President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, Puntland stood up the Puntland Intelligence Service (later reorganized as the Puntland Intelligence Agency, and today the Puntland Intelligence Security Agency) as a joint venture with U.S. intelligence support, built specifically to counter the spread of Islamist militancy in the region. That agency has since served as Puntland’s primary counterterrorism and intelligence arm, and its evolution — including a 2009 restructuring, agreed with U.S. officials, that split it into a distinct security force and intelligence service — reflects a partnership that has been continuously renegotiated rather than newly invented. Framed against that history, the current Bosaso discussion looks less like a new chapter and more like the latest, higher-stakes iteration of a two-decade relationship.
Why Bosaso Matters
Bosaso sits on the Gulf of Aden, adjacent to one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors linking Europe, the Gulf, and Asia. That geography has already drawn in the UAE, which has backed the Puntland Maritime Police Force since 2010 and holds a 30-year concession, through P&O Ports, to develop and manage Bosaso’s port. It has also made the city a recurring launch point for U.S. and allied counter-ISIS operations in the nearby Cal Miskaad mountains.
Beyond the coastline, exploratory surveys point to possible mineral deposits in Puntland, though nothing commercially viable has yet been confirmed. If that changes, it would add another layer to the region’s strategic value — and another reason security and governance need to keep pace with investment.
Security Gains
Puntland has generally shown more institutional resilience against al-Shabaab, ISIS-Somalia, piracy, and arms trafficking than other parts of Somalia, aided by sustained U.S. and Emirati support. But the threat picture is widening: Red Sea instability and Houthi activity off Yemen raise the risk of maritime insecurity and smuggling spilling into the Gulf of Aden, adding an Iran-linked proxy dimension to an already complex threat environment.
A deeper U.S. relationship could plausibly strengthen:
Intelligence-sharing and early-warning systems
Maritime domain awareness and coastal defense
Counterterrorism training and border/migration security
Counter-financing and arms-interdiction efforts
Communications and logistics infrastructure
Economic Stakes
Security partnerships of this kind typically bring infrastructure investment — ports, transport, telecoms — that can spill over into broader economic activity. Bosaso’s port, already central to Puntland’s economy and under long-term UAE development, could see this reinforced further. Should mineral exploration eventually pay off, mining could join fisheries, livestock, and maritime trade as a pillar of diversification — provided it’s managed transparently.
Constitutional and Political Complications
Foreign affairs sit primarily with Somalia’s Federal Government under the Provisional Constitution, which means any formal Puntland–U.S. arrangement would need to be reconciled with Mogadishu’s constitutional role — a live tension given the ongoing standoff between Puntland and the federal government over control of security forces in Bosaso itself. Sustained American engagement nonetheless reinforces Puntland’s reputation as a stable, capable security partner relative to much of the rest of Somalia, a status likely to keep growing as competition over Red Sea security and critical minerals intensifies.
Regional Competition
The Horn of Africa is now a crowded field: the Gulf states, Türkiye, China, and Western powers are all expanding their footprint across the Red Sea corridor, competing over ports, energy routes, and digital infrastructure as much as military basing. An expanded U.S. role in Bosaso would be one more variable in that broader contest, with implications for freedom of navigation and shipping security across the Gulf of Aden.
Outlook
Whether a more formal Puntland–U.S. partnership becomes a genuine asset will depend less on the scale of military cooperation than on how it’s governed: transparency in negotiation, a workable constitutional footing with the Federal Government, and institutions capable of managing the resulting investment responsibly. Bosaso’s geography and Puntland’s security track record already make it a significant actor in regional counterterrorism and maritime security; how the politics around Bosaso are managed — both internally and with Mogadishu — will determine whether that translates into lasting stability or becomes another flashpoint in Somalia’s federal disputes.

For more than a quarter century, Puntland has been among Somalia’s strongest advocates of federal unity — investing political capital, exercising restraint through successive national crises, and championing constitutional governance in the belief that partnership, not domination, would hold the country together. Today, many Puntlanders are asking an unavoidable question: how long can loyalty be sustained when it is repeatedly answered with marginalization?
Puntland has built functioning institutions, maintained relative security, and contributed substantially to counterterrorism, maritime security, and state-building — often while national institutions elsewhere struggled to function at all. Yet many in the region see these contributions as unreciprocated: the Federal Constitution, they argue, has been applied selectively — invoked when convenient for Mogadishu, set aside when it constrains centralized power. Rather than being treated as a model of stable regional governance, Puntland’s autonomy is, in this view, treated as an obstacle to be managed.
This reframes the central question. It is no longer whether Puntland has met its obligations to Somalia, but whether successive federal governments have met their constitutional obligations to Puntland — and whether Puntland needs Mogadishu more than Mogadishu needs it. Many now conclude the region gives more to the federal project than it receives back in equal representation, resource-sharing, or genuine partnership. That frustration extends to Puntland’s own leadership too: years of compromise without reciprocal guarantees, and the absence of a coherent long-term strategy, have arguably weakened the state’s negotiating position.

A WDM Editorial

Today’s bilateral security agreement between the United States and Puntland, authorizing the expansion of the American presence in Bosaso, should not be dismissed as simply another counterterrorism arrangement. It is better understood as the latest chapter in a much larger geopolitical story—one that begins not in Bosaso, but at Cape Guardafui (Ras Asayr), where the Gulf of Aden meets the Indian Ocean. According to the Puntland Presidency, the agreement focuses on strengthening cooperation against terrorism and enhancing maritime security in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.¹
For decades, Cape Guardafui has been treated as a forgotten headland. In reality, it is the natural Suez Canal of the Horn of Africa. Long before satellites, GPS, and electronic navigation, ships sailing between Europe, the Middle East, India, and the Far East depended upon the lighthouse at Cape Guardafui to safely negotiate one of the world’s most hazardous coastlines. Italian colonial authorities understood its commercial significance so well that they established a system of collecting navigation fees from international vessels passing the Cape.²
The Cape was not merely overlooking global commerce.
It was helping to organize it.
This is why Cape Guardafui deserves to be viewed as the natural counterpart to the Suez Canal—a maritime asset whose value lies not in engineering, but in geography itself.
History demonstrates a simple principle: great powers do not choose geography; geography chooses great powers. The United States’ decision to deepen its partnership with Puntland should therefore be seen within the broader strategic context of securing one of the busiest maritime corridors on Earth. While the immediate justification is counterterrorism and maritime security, history teaches that enduring military partnerships are almost always built upon enduring strategic geography.³
For years, WDM has argued that Puntland’s greatest untapped resource is neither oil nor minerals, but its location. Nature placed Puntland astride the junction between the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean. While Somali politics remained consumed by internal constitutional disputes, global powers quietly continued studying the map.
Today’s agreement suggests Washington has reached the same conclusion.
Years ago, Puntland attempted to transform Cape Guardafui into an international maritime service and tourism hub through a Swiss-backed feasibility study that proposed fuel facilities, freshwater supply, hospitality services, and support infrastructure for international shipping and cruise liners. The project reportedly received favourable technical assessments and support for private-sector engagement.
It ultimately failed—not because the economics were flawed, but because Puntland lacked internationally recognized sovereign authority to conclude agreements of such strategic magnitude. Questions surrounding Somalia’s constitutional arrangements and the international legal status of the surrounding waters proved decisive.⁴
Ironically, the same strategic sensitivity that once discouraged commercial investment now appears to justify expanded international security cooperation.
This represents a remarkable geopolitical reversal.
Bosaso is not simply another port. It is the logistical gateway to Cape Guardafui. Any long-term effort to secure the Gulf of Aden, Bab el-Mandeb, and the approaches to the Red Sea inevitably elevates the importance of the Bosaso–Guardafui maritime corridor.
That corridor has become increasingly significant as Houthi attacks have disrupted Red Sea shipping, piracy concerns have persisted in the western Indian Ocean, and competition among the United States, Gulf states, China, Turkey, and European powers has intensified.⁵
There is another lesson hidden in Guardafui’s history.
For generations, rumours circulated in international maritime circles alleging that the inhabitants around Cape Guardafui practiced cannibalism after lighthouse keepers mysteriously disappeared. Lloyd’s of London reportedly increased insurance premiums as fears spread through commercial shipping networks.
The reality appears to have been far less sensational.
Local communities allegedly persuaded isolated lighthouse keepers to abandon their posts and settle nearby. With the lighthouse extinguished, vessels struck reefs, creating opportunities for salvaging valuable cargo washed ashore. What later became folklore was, in reality, an early example of how misinformation could distort international markets while masking an informal maritime economy.
Even the old Somali saying—”Bad ka soo bax, boqor baa leh” (“What the sea yields belongs to the King”)—captures an ancient understanding that maritime wealth belongs to legitimate political authority. Long before the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea codified maritime rights, Somali coastal communities already understood sovereignty in practical terms.⁶
Today, the strategic importance of Cape Guardafui is no longer merely historical.
Conflict in the Red Sea, renewed great-power rivalry, expanding military deployments, and growing concern over global supply chains have all returned international attention to the Horn of Africa. The same geography that Italian administrators monetized, that Swiss planners sought to develop, and that Puntland long recognized is finally being rediscovered by the wider world.
The Bosaso agreement is therefore more than a security pact.
It is an implicit acknowledgement that Puntland occupies one of the world’s indispensable maritime frontiers.
If Puntland can match this renewed international interest with constitutional stability, strategic planning, and long-term investment in maritime infrastructure, today’s agreement may eventually be remembered not simply as the expansion of an American military presence, but as the moment Cape Guardafui finally re-entered the geopolitical imagination of the twenty-first century.
The natural Suez Canal of the Horn of Africa was never hidden.
It was merely waiting for history to catch up with geography.

——-
Notes
Puntland Presidency, Official Statement on the Bilateral Cooperation Agreement Between Puntland and the United States, Bosaso, August 2, 2026.
Richard Burton, First Footsteps in East Africa (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1856); Italian Colonial Administration records on the Capo Guardafui Lighthouse.
International Maritime Organization (IMO), Safety of Navigation: Gulf of Aden and Western Indian Ocean (London: IMO, various editions).
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Montego Bay, December 10, 1982.
BBC News, “Why the Red Sea Is One of the World’s Most Strategic Shipping Routes”; United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), Federal Government of Somalia Engages ISIS-Somalia with Support from U.S. Forces, April 18, 2025.
I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of Somalia: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa, 4th ed. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2002); Lidwien Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia: The Ruinous Legacy of 1991 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).

Bibliography
Burton, Richard. First Footsteps in East Africa. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1856.
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). “Why the Red Sea Is One of the World’s Most Strategic Shipping Routes.”
International Maritime Organization. Safety of Navigation: Gulf of Aden and Western Indian Ocean. London: IMO.
Kapteijns, Lidwien. Clan Cleansing in Somalia: The Ruinous Legacy of 1991. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.
Lewis, I. M. A Modern History of Somalia: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa. 4th ed. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2002.
Puntland Presidency. Official Statement on the Bilateral Cooperation Agreement Between Puntland and the United States. Bosaso, August 2, 2026.
United Nations. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Montego Bay, December 10, 1982.
United States Africa Command. Federal Government of Somalia Engages ISIS-Somalia with Support from U.S. Forces. Press Release, April 18, 2025.

By WDM Editorial Board

The agreement signed in Bosaso between Puntland and the United States is more than another security memorandum. It is a geopolitical milestone that reflects a changing balance of power in the Horn of Africa. For the first time, Puntland and Washington have publicly formalized a bilateral arrangement authorizing the expansion of the U.S. military presence in Bosaso. What had been a year of military cooperation has now become institutional policy.
The significance lies not merely in the expansion of a military base, but in what that expansion says about Somalia, the region, and the international community’s evolving strategic calculations.
The immediate justification is straightforward. Puntland has emerged as the principal local force confronting ISIS-Somalia in the Cal Miskaad mountains while simultaneously protecting one of the world’s most important maritime corridors. The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden have become increasingly contested waters, threatened by piracy, regional conflict, and the wider confrontation involving Iran and the United States. Bosaso offers Washington an ideal forward operating location from which to address all three challenges.
Yet the agreement is also a consequence of political realities inside Somalia.
For years, the Federal Government insisted that all international security partnerships must pass through Mogadishu. In practice, however, Somalia’s prolonged political paralysis, constitutional disputes, and weakened federal institutions have steadily reduced Mogadishu’s ability to exercise effective authority across the country. International partners increasingly appear to be dealing with political realities rather than constitutional theory. The Bosaso agreement reflects that shift.
The timing is equally revealing.
Following the withdrawal of the United Arab Emirates from Bosaso after the collapse of its defence relationship with the Federal Government, a strategic vacuum emerged. Military infrastructure that had been built over many years suddenly lacked an external operator. Washington has now moved decisively to occupy that strategic space before another regional or global power could do so.
Geopolitically, this makes perfect sense.
Bosaso sits at one of the world’s most valuable maritime crossroads, overlooking the approaches to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the wider Red Sea corridor. Control, surveillance, and rapid deployment from this location carry significance extending far beyond Somalia itself. At a time when global shipping faces unprecedented uncertainty, every major power understands Bosaso’s value.
But this agreement should also serve as a wake-up call for Somalia’s political class.
When external powers increasingly negotiate directly with Federal Member States, it is less a triumph of federalism than a reflection of the failure to complete Somalia’s constitutional transition. International actors prefer predictable and capable partners. Where national institutions cannot provide that certainty, regional authorities inevitably fill the vacuum.
This creates both opportunities and dangers.
For Puntland, closer cooperation with the United States may strengthen counterterrorism capabilities, improve maritime security, and potentially attract broader economic engagement in sectors such as ports, fisheries, energy, and minerals. If managed transparently and within constitutional principles, such cooperation could contribute to regional stability.
However, strategic partnerships must never become substitutes for Somali political reconciliation. Military cooperation cannot replace constitutional settlement. Security arrangements cannot permanently compensate for unresolved questions of sovereignty, federal authority, and the distribution of powers between Mogadishu and the Federal Member States.
The Bosaso pact therefore raises profound constitutional questions that Somalia can no longer postpone. If regional governments are increasingly entering major international security agreements independently, then Somalia’s federal architecture requires urgent political clarification rather than continued ambiguity.
The coming weeks will reveal much. AFRICOM’s detailed position, the legal framework governing the expanded base, the duration of the agreement, and, above all, Mogadishu’s response will determine whether this becomes a source of constructive cooperation or another chapter in Somalia’s constitutional confrontation.
One conclusion, however, is already unmistakable.
Bosaso is no longer merely Puntland’s principal port. It has become one of the most strategically important security hubs in the Horn of Africa. The agreement signed on 2 August 2026 confirms that international powers increasingly see Puntland not simply as a regional administration, but as an indispensable security partner in one of the world’s most volatile strategic theatres.
History may ultimately remember this agreement as the moment Bosaso moved from being a regional port to becoming a central pillar in the architecture of Red Sea security—and as another reminder that, in geopolitics, power ultimately follows capability, stability, and strategic geography rather than constitutional aspirations alone.

By WDM Editorial Desk

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a developing story. The reported agreement has, at the time of publication, not been independently confirmed by the Puntland State House, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu, or other official sources. Readers should treat the claim as provisional pending formal verification.

——–
Reports circulating on Sunday suggest that Puntland State and the United States have concluded a bilateral security agreement that could significantly expand American military cooperation at Bosaso. If confirmed, the reported pact would represent one of the most consequential security developments in the Horn of Africa in recent years, strengthening cooperation on counterterrorism, maritime security, and regional stability.
The report remains unverified, but it does not emerge in a vacuum. Over the past year, senior U.S. diplomatic and AFRICOM delegations have repeatedly visited Puntland, holding discussions centered on counterterrorism cooperation, maritime security, and strategic investment. Those engagements have increasingly pointed toward deeper security relations between Washington and Garowe.
Should the agreement prove authentic, its timing would be strategically significant. Following Somalia’s federal government’s cancellation of its security arrangements with the United Arab Emirates earlier this year, the Emirati military presence at Bosaso has reportedly been scaled back, potentially leaving valuable infrastructure available for a new security partnership. For Washington, Bosaso offers an important position overlooking the Gulf of Aden and supporting operations against ISIS-Somalia in the Cal Miskaad mountains while helping secure one of the world’s most critical maritime corridors.

Politically, such a development would also intensify the constitutional debate between Puntland and Mogadishu. A direct security arrangement between the United States and Puntland would almost certainly provoke strong reactions from the Federal Government of Somalia, which has consistently maintained that foreign security agreements fall under federal authority.
At this stage, however, facts must prevail over speculation. Three questions require immediate clarification:

Has a formal agreement actually been signed?
What is the precise scope of the reported cooperation?
Will official confirmation come from Puntland, AFRICOM, or the U.S. State Department?

Until these questions are answered, WDM urges readers to distinguish between credible strategic possibility and verified fact. The trajectory of U.S.–Puntland cooperation has been visible for months, but the existence of a formal basing agreement remains to be independently confirmed.

WDM will continue to monitor developments and provide updates as authoritative information becomes available.

Article 5
Fundamental Rights
Every citizen of Puntland shall enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms, including:
Equality before the law.
Protection of life, liberty, and dignity.
Freedom from unlawful arrest or detention.
Freedom of movement.
Freedom of expression within the limits of the law.
Freedom of religion consistent with Islam.
Freedom of assembly and association.
Protection of private property.
The right to education.
The right to work.
Equal opportunity in public employment.
Access to justice before independent courts.
Protection against discrimination.
Respect for privacy, family, and the home.
The right to participate in public affairs.
These rights may only be limited by law where necessary to protect public order, morality, national security, or the rights of others, and any such limitation must remain consistent with this Charter.

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and on behalf of the people of Puntland:
Recognizing that our country has experienced severe destruction, hardship, and instability caused by dictatorship, civil war, and the absence of law and order;
Believing that the Somali people require a government founded on peace, justice, and the rule of law;
Affirming the principle of self-determination, while striving for the unity of the Somali people based on justice and mutual understanding;
Convinced that peace, freedom, and reconciliation among Somalis can only be achieved through dialogue and cooperation;
Determined to contribute to the reconstruction of Somalia and to enable the Somali people to regain their rightful place among the nations of the world;
Committed to establishing within our communities a peaceful, just, prosperous, and cooperative society;
Therefore, assembled in the city of Garowe, we adopt this Charter establishing the Puntland State as part of a future Federal Republic of Somalia.
Accordingly, we hereby approve and adopt this Charter as our fundamental law.

By Dr Abucar Aden Cadde

Somalia has survived colonial partition, civil war, terrorism, famine, and repeated political crises. Yet the gravest danger it faces today comes not from abroad but from within: the failure of its political class to govern as one nation rather than as competing factions.
It is worth recalling that Somalia’s federalism was never a system designed and imposed top-down. It emerged de facto out of the state collapse of 1991, as regions organized themselves independently amid the vacuum left by civil war. That reality was later given legal form — first by the 2004 Transitional Federal Charter, which established the Transitional Federal Government and formally recognized a federal structure as the basis for reconstituting the state, and then by the 2012 Provisional Constitution, which entrenched federalism as the governing framework of the Federal Republic. Federalism, in other words, was a negotiated response to an existing fact on the ground — not an ideological blueprint imposed on a unitary state. Understanding this origin matters: much of today’s friction stems from the fact that the system was built to accommodate a fractured post-war reality before its institutions, revenue-sharing arrangements, and constitutional boundaries were fully worked out.
That unfinished business is now compounded by a more direct betrayal: the same leaders who took office under the Provisional Constitution are, in practice, undermining the very federal system it establishes. Term extensions without constitutional basis, unilateral changes to electoral processes, and the selective application of federal law all weaken the framework that gave these leaders their legitimacy in the first place. A constitution cannot anchor a federal system if the officials elected under it treat its provisions as negotiable whenever they become inconvenient.
This is now the country’s central liability. The Federal Government and the Federal Member States too often act as rivals rather than constitutional partners, spending their energy contesting authority instead of coordinating policy. The cost falls on ordinary Somalis: each month lost to political disputes is a month without better schools, hospitals, roads, jobs, or security.
Beneath this dysfunction lies a deeper problem — the absence of a national identity that consistently outweighs clan calculation. Clan remains a legitimate part of Somali social life, but when it becomes the primary currency of politics, national institutions cannot mature. The current impasse between the Federal Government and opposition figures is a symptom of this: political competition is healthy, but only within constitutional bounds and a culture of dialogue and compromise. Left unresolved, this polarization risks reversing hard-won gains.
Border security and cross-border migration also demand serious, evidence-based national debate — not neglect, and not exploitation for political advantage. So does the persistent erosion of public trust from corruption and weak governance, despite the billions in international support Somalia has received. Transparency and competent administration are prerequisites for state-building, not optional extras.
Somalia’s underlying assets remain considerable: a strategic position at the mouth of the Red Sea, Africa’s longest mainland coastline, natural resources, an entrepreneurial population, and an engaged global diaspora. But potential does not build a state — vision, discipline, and leadership do.
Nations rarely collapse overnight; they erode gradually, as leaders normalize division, hollow out institutions, and trade long-term national interest for short-term expediency. The responsibility for reversing this pattern lies first with Somalia’s political leadership, whose legacy will be judged not by the offices they held but by whether they strengthened the Republic, upheld its Constitution, and improved citizens’ lives.
Federalism is not the enemy — dysfunctional federalism is. Opposition is not the enemy — paralysis is. Regional diversity is not the enemy — the absence of national purpose is.
Somalia’s future depends less on the ambitions of individual politicians or clans than on whether the country can re-embrace one governing principle: Somalia must come before faction, region, or clan. If that principle prevails, Somalia’s prospects remain bright. If it does not, the greatest threat to the Republic will come not from abroad, but from the failure of its own leaders to protect what has been entrusted to them.m, famine, and repeated political crises. Yet the gravest danger it faces today comes not from abroad but from within: the failure of its political class to govern as one nation rather than as competing factions.
It is worth recalling that Somalia’s federalism was never a system designed and imposed top-down. It emerged de facto out of the state collapse of 1991, as regions organized themselves independently amid the vacuum left by civil war. That reality was later given legal form — first by the 2004 Transitional Federal Charter, which established the Transitional Federal Government and formally recognized a federal structure as the basis for reconstituting the state, and then by the 2012 Provisional Constitution, which entrenched federalism as the governing framework of the Federal Republic. Federalism, in other words, was a negotiated response to an existing fact on the ground — not an ideological blueprint imposed on a unitary state. Understanding this origin matters: much of today’s friction stems from the fact that the system was built to accommodate a fractured post-war reality before its institutions, revenue-sharing arrangements, and constitutional boundaries were fully worked out.
That unfinished business is now compounded by a more direct betrayal: the same leaders who took office under the Provisional Constitution are, in practice, undermining the very federal system it establishes. Term extensions without constitutional basis, unilateral changes to electoral processes, and the selective application of federal law all weaken the framework that gave these leaders their legitimacy in the first place. A constitution cannot anchor a federal system if the officials elected under it treat its provisions as negotiable whenever they become inconvenient.
This is now the country’s central liability. The Federal Government and the Federal Member States too often act as rivals rather than constitutional partners, spending their energy contesting authority instead of coordinating policy. The cost falls on ordinary Somalis: each month lost to political disputes is a month without better schools, hospitals, roads, jobs, or security.
Beneath this dysfunction lies a deeper problem — the absence of a national identity that consistently outweighs clan calculation. Clan remains a legitimate part of Somali social life, but when it becomes the primary currency of politics, national institutions cannot mature. The current impasse between the Federal Government and opposition figures is a symptom of this: political competition is healthy, but only within constitutional bounds and a culture of dialogue and compromise. Left unresolved, this polarization risks reversing hard-won gains.
Border security and cross-border migration also demand serious, evidence-based national debate — not neglect, and not exploitation for political advantage. So does the persistent erosion of public trust from corruption and weak governance, despite the billions in international support Somalia has received. Transparency and competent administration are prerequisites for state-building, not optional extras.
Somalia’s underlying assets remain considerable: a strategic position at the mouth of the Red Sea, Africa’s longest mainland coastline, natural resources, an entrepreneurial population, and an engaged global diaspora. But potential does not build a state — vision, discipline, and leadership do.
Nations rarely collapse overnight; they erode gradually, as leaders normalize division, hollow out institutions, and trade long-term national interest for short-term expediency. The responsibility for reversing this pattern lies first with Somalia’s political leadership, whose legacy will be judged not by the offices they held but by whether they strengthened the Republic, upheld its Constitution, and improved citizens’ lives.
Federalism is not the enemy — dysfunctional federalism is. Opposition is not the enemy — paralysis is. Regional diversity is not the enemy — the absence of national purpose is.
Somalia’s future depends less on the ambitions of individual politicians or clans than on whether the country can re-embrace one governing principle: Somalia must come before faction, region, or clan. If that principle prevails, Somalia’s prospects remain bright. If it does not, the greatest threat to the Republic will come not from abroad, but from the failure of its own leaders to protect what has been entrusted to them.

A WDM Editorial

Check out this video, ahmed cali cigaal

There are public figures who occupy office, and there are public figures who occupy the hearts of a people. Ahmed Ali Egal belonged unmistakably to the latter.
With his passing, Puntland—and Somalia as a whole—has lost not merely a singer or a poet, but one of the enduring custodians of Somali cultural memory. His was a voice that entertained without becoming trivial, inspired without becoming arrogant, and united without demanding allegiance. Such figures are rare in any generation.
Ahmed Ali Egal understood something many politicians never do: nations are sustained not only by constitutions and governments but by songs, poetry, language, and shared memory. Where politicians often divided, artists like him reminded Somalis of what they still held in common.
His music carried the rhythm of the Somali soul. His poetry reflected both the beauty and the burdens of a people who have endured conflict, displacement, and political fragmentation. He belonged to Puntland by origin, but his artistic legacy belonged to every Somali who ever found hope, comfort, or pride in his words.
In times when public life is increasingly dominated by political quarrels, clan rivalries, and endless constitutional disputes, the death of a cultural icon is a sobering reminder of what truly outlives power. Presidents leave office. Governments rise and fall. Political slogans fade. But the songs that become part of a people’s identity endure for generations.
That is why Ahmed Ali Egal’s passing deserves to be mourned not as the loss of an entertainer, but as the departure of a national treasure.
A society that fails to honour its artists slowly loses its memory. Cultural figures preserve the emotional history of a nation. They teach values that no legislation can enforce and inspire unity that no political decree can command. Somalia desperately needs more builders of culture and fewer merchants of division.
Today, we extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, admirers, and to the people of Puntland and Somalia everywhere.
May his poetry continue to be recited.
May his songs continue to be sung.
May his example remind future generations that true greatness is measured not by political office or military rank, but by the lasting imprint one leaves upon the conscience of a people.
Ahmed Ali Egal has departed this world.
His voice has not.
Rest in peace, cultural giant. Somalia is richer because you lived, and poorer because you are gone.

Ahmed Farah Yare responds to the article: Candour Over Convenience: President Deni’s Tribute to Abdullahi Yusuf and the Puntland Story

President Said Abdullahi Deni’s tribute to his predecessor, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed — founder of Puntland State and later President of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government — is a fitting reminder of what good leadership looks like. It offers society both the lessons worth learning and the mistakes worth avoiding.
It is a rare trait among sitting leaders to honor their predecessors rather than diminish them. By recognizing Abdullahi Yusuf’s legacy, Deni reinforces political continuity, models a culture of institutional respect, and gives the public a clearer sense of Puntland’s founding purpose and historical trajectory.
This kind of gesture is not incidental. Great leaders distinguish themselves not only by their own achievements but by how they treat those who came before them — and how deliberately they cultivate the next generation of capable administrators. In doing so, they ensure that a state’s gains are sustained rather than reset with each transition of power, and that regional progress compounds over time instead of starting from zero.

By Abdiladif Ahmed

Puntland’s 28th anniversary should be more than ceremony. It is an occasion to reckon with the history that produced it, the sacrifices behind its institutions, and the challenges that still test them.
Puntland’s story cannot be told through 28 years alone. Decades of struggle of its residents preceded its foundation It was  shaped by resistance to tyranny and  collapse of Somalia’s central state, the civil war that followed, and the human devastation — displacement, lost lives, destroyed livelihoods, dismantled institutions — that drove communities across the country, including Puntland, to seek order through self-governance. What exists today was built through loss, compromise, and the sustained effort of generations. It is a historical inheritance, not the property of any administration, faction, or leader.
Twenty-Eight Years of Challenges
Since 1998, Puntland has faced internal political disputes, armed confrontation, boundary disputes, piracy and maritime crime, terrorism, clan tension, and recurring conflict with Somalia’s federal government over the shape of federalism itself.
Its coastline has made it a target for smuggling and organized crime, while extremist groups — most notably the Islamic State-linked militants entrenched in the Golis Mountains — have exploited insecurity and geographic isolation, prompting sustained counter-insurgency operations.
Sool remains the sharpest test. The question of SSC-Khaatumo cannot be set aside within Puntland’s history, as these territories still constitutionally form part of Puntland State. That question hangs unresolved and must be addressed — a matter further complicated by Somaliland and the Federal Government’s own competing claims in the region. Puntland State’s disputes with the Mogadishu Regime have been similarly strained by disagreements over constitutional violations, elections, and resource-sharing — culminating in Puntland’s March 2024 decision to withdraw recognition of the Federal Government after parliament passed constitutional amendments Puntland considers illegitimate. Puntland has since operated with what it calls “the powers of an independent state based on both Federal and State constitutions,” pending an inclusive constitutional process of the federal arrangements.
That Puntland has preserved institutional continuity through all of this is itself the measure of its resilience.
The Risk of Fragmentation
Political disagreement is normal; it becomes dangerous when turned into institutional confrontation, or when clan identity is used as a political weapon rather than treated as one thread of Somali social life. Clan should never substitute for constitutional authority or shield anyone from accountability.
Puntland’s future cannot rest on manipulating clan divisions or personal rivalries. It requires constitutional institutions, the rule of law, and public accountability to sit above narrow political calculation — with lawful, institutional means, not informal pressure, as the response when that line is crossed.
The Responsibility Ahead
Entering its 29th year, Puntland’s task is neither complacency nor nostalgia, but renewed commitment to:
Institutional integrity and constitutional governance,
The rule of law and equal accountability,
Political dialogue over confrontation
National unity and social cohesion,
Professional, disciplined security institutions,
Defense of Puntland’s territorial and political interests through lawful means,
Counter-terrorism and prevention of violent extremism,
Sustainable economic and social development, and
Accountable political leadership.
None of this is secured by dismantling institutions, deepening division, or concentrating power without checks. It is secured by strengthening institutions and keeping political authority subject to law.
Conclusion
Puntland’s 28th anniversary is not only a marker of distance traveled — it is a reminder of what was spent to travel it. The responsibility of this generation is not just to celebrate what was built, but to protect, reform, and strengthen it, so that the sacrifices behind it were not made in vain.

A WDM Editorial

As Puntland marks its 28th Anniversary, it is fitting to reflect on the leadership that shaped its journey. The images above symbolize two generations of that story: Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the founding president who led Puntland’s establishment in 1998, and Said Abdullahi Deni, the current president whose recent tribute reaffirmed the importance of preserving Puntland’s institutional memory.
Twenty-eight years after its establishment, Puntland remains one of the most significant political achievements in modern Somali history. Its existence was not accidental. It was born from the conviction that Somalia’s state collapse demanded institution-building rather than endless waiting for the restoration of authority in Mogadishu.
That vision was championed by Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and the generation that founded Puntland. They chose constitutional governance over anarchy, administration over chaos, and political order over warlordism. Their work demonstrated that functioning government could emerge even while much of Somalia remained engulfed in conflict.
President Said Abdullahi Deni’s recent remarks honouring Abdullahi Yusuf were therefore more than a tribute to a predecessor. They were an affirmation that institutions endure only when successive leaders possess the confidence to acknowledge those who laid their foundations. In a political culture where predecessors are too often ignored or remembered only when politically convenient, such candour reflects statesmanship.
Puntland’s greatest achievement has never been the success of one individual. It has been the endurance of its constitutional institutions across changing administrations and difficult political moments. Leaders come and go; institutions survive only when history is respected rather than rewritten.
As Puntland celebrates twenty-eight years, the most meaningful tribute to its founders is not nostalgia but renewed commitment to the principles upon which the state was built: constitutionalism, the rule of law, accountable government, devolution of power, and service to the public.
The legacy of Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed belongs to history. The responsibility of President Said Abdullahi Deni belongs to the present. Together, they represent two chapters of the same continuing story—a Puntland whose strength lies not in personalities, but in the institutions that continue to serve its people.
Happy 28th Anniversary, Puntland State of Somalia. May the next generation preserve the courage to build, the wisdom to reform, and the integrity to honour history while shaping the future.

A WDM Editorial

Deni’s Speech. Take a watch:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CB7bWAd3h/

There are moments in politics when what is left unsaid reveals more than what is spoken. Then there are rarer moments when a leader chooses candour over convenience, history over political calculation, and institutional memory over personal rivalry. President Said Abdullahi Deni’s remarks at the launch of Ambassador Mohamed Abdi Affey’s book belonged to the latter category.
Speaking about the late President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed has never been politically effortless. His legacy remains one of the most consequential and contested in modern Somali history. To some, he was the uncompromising soldier who restored order from chaos and founded Puntland in 1998. To others, he was an authoritarian figure whose confrontational style shaped many of the political conflicts that followed. Like most nation-builders emerging from state collapse, he was neither saint nor villain. He was a historical actor operating in extraordinary circumstances.
That is precisely why President Deni’s tribute mattered.
Rather than reducing Abdullahi Yusuf to political symbolism or avoiding his legacy altogether, Deni acknowledged a simple historical reality: Puntland did not emerge by accident. It was a deliberate political project born from the conviction that waiting for the resurrection of a collapsed state in Mogadishu was no strategy at all. Puntland’s founders chose institution-building over paralysis, governance over anarchy, and constitutional order over endless warlordism.
That decision changed Somalia’s political trajectory.
Long before federalism became the accepted framework for rebuilding Somalia, Puntland had already demonstrated that functioning institutions could be constructed from the periphery outward. Whatever one’s opinion of Abdullahi Yusuf personally, that historical contribution cannot honestly be erased. Puntland became proof that Somalis could rebuild government even while the national state remained in ruins.
Acknowledging that fact is not hero worship. It is historical integrity.
Great political leaders understand that institutions are larger than individuals. They also understand that institutions cannot survive if every incoming administration rewrites history to suit its own political needs. Nations that erase their founders eventually lose sight of why they were founded in the first place.
President Deni’s remarks reflected that understanding. By speaking respectfully of a predecessor whose legacy remains politically sensitive, he positioned himself not as a competitor for historical credit but as a custodian of Puntland’s institutional continuity. That distinction matters.
At a time when Puntland faces renewed constitutional disputes with the Federal Government, reaffirming the principles upon which Puntland itself was founded sends a powerful message. Puntland’s defence of constitutional federalism is not simply the policy of one administration. It is the continuation of a political philosophy established in 1998: that stable governance begins with functioning institutions, respect for constitutional order, and the devolution—not the monopolization—of political power.
The setting made the message even more significant. Ambassador Mohamed Abdi Affey has observed Somali politics from regional and international vantage points for decades. A book launch attended by diplomats, policymakers, and scholars was an appropriate forum to remind both domestic and international audiences that Puntland’s history is part of the wider story of state-building in the Horn of Africa, not merely another chapter in Somalia’s endless political rivalries.
History should neither canonize nor condemn without context. Abdullahi Yusuf’s record, like that of many founders, contains achievements, controversies, successes, and failures. Historians will continue debating his methods and decisions, and they should. Mature societies do not fear such debates. They encourage them.
What deserves recognition is President Deni’s willingness to engage that history without resorting to either convenient silence or selective remembrance.
That is what statesmanship looks like.
The strongest institutions are built not merely by those who found them, but by those who are secure enough to honour their foundations without becoming prisoners of personality cults. Puntland’s story belongs neither to Abdullahi Yusuf alone nor to any administration that followed him. It belongs to the people who chose constitutional governance over collapse and institutional continuity over political expediency.
President Deni’s tribute served as a timely reminder that political maturity begins with historical honesty. Leaders come and go. Institutions endure only when successive generations possess the confidence to acknowledge both the triumphs and imperfections of those who came before.
In Somali politics, where history is too often weaponized and predecessors are remembered only when politically useful, candour itself becomes an act of leadership.
That may ultimately be the most enduring message of President Deni’s remarks.

By Ahmed Hassan Humbus

Let’s stop hiding behind diplomatic pleasantries and face the brutal reality: Somalia is not a functioning sovereign republic. It is a hollowed-out, internationally subsidized welfare state on permanent life support. For decades, its national budget, its military apparatus, and its entire humanitarian sector have been completely bankrolled by financial injections from the United States and the European Union. The country is addicted to foreign charity. But what happens when the money stops? If this vital economic lifeline is abruptly severed while the nation remains completely encircled by Al-Shabaab, the myth of Somali unity and sovereignty will violently shatter.
An immediate aid cutoff would not just cause a crisis—it would trigger an absolute catastrophe. Let’s be honest about the military: the Somali National Army (SNA) is fundamentally dependent on foreign cash for basic salaries, training, and logistics. Cut the Western funding, and the army collapses from within. Unpaid soldiers will desert, morale will hit zero, and mutinies will break out. At the same time, multilateral peacekeeping forces—who only stay because the EU and UN foot the bill—will pack up and leave overnight. This massive security vacuum will be an open invitation for Al-Shabaab. While Mogadishu goes bankrupt, Al-Shabaab remains financially self-sufficient through ruthless local extortion and illicit trade. They will out-source, out-gun, and out-maneuver a paralyzed central government, seizing territory at will and forcefully conscripting thousands of abandoned, desperate youths.
Furthermore, let’s strip away the illusion of federal unity. The federal structure in Somalia is not bound by patriotism or shared national values; it is held together solely by the distribution of international cash managed by Mogadishu. The moment the federal government loses its ability to hand out foreign aid and development projects, its authority vanishes. Federal Member States will have absolutely zero incentive to look to the capital for leadership. Regions will bypass Mogadishu entirely, aggressively striking independent, treasonous security and economic deals with regional puppet-masters like Ethiopia, Kenya, or Gulf states just to survive.
In the midst of this chaotic collapse, the ultimate fracture of the old union will become irreversible. Somaliland, which has already maintained its own democratic governance, currency, and relative stability for decades, will definitively go its separate way. Freed from the anchors of Mogadishu’s endless instability, Somaliland will successfully achieve its long-sought objective and take its rightful seat as a fully recognized, independent UN member nation. This political fragmentation will leave the rest of the country in a state of brutal balkanization, dragging the remaining southern regions right back into bloody, clan-based resource wars over ports, airports, and grazing lands.
If the rest of the country survives this collapse, it won’t be because of its political class. A bankrupt Mogadishu will be forced into a humiliating scramble, begging non-Western powers for survival. Countries like Turkey, Qatar, the UAE, and China will gladly step into the vacuum—but their help will not be charity. They will demand geopolitical assets, military bases, and natural resources, renting out remaining Somali sovereignty to the highest bidder. Domestically, the government will finally be forced to strip the local business elite of their free ride, aggressively taxing powerhouse industries like telecommunications and remittance firms that have profited for years while contributing next to nothing to the state. Ultimately, the only thing standing between the population and total starvation will be the diaspora, whose remittances will become the final, desperate safety net for an abandoned population.
The region must wake up from this delusion. Somali unity is a house of cards built on a foundation of foreign charity. If the West withdraws its support while terrorism knocks on the door, the federal system will implode. While Somaliland secures its independent future on the global stage, an aid-free southern Somalia will not be a unified nation. It will be a fractured, highly militarized failed state, forced to bargain away its dignity piece by piece just to keep the lights on.

By Abdiladif Ahmed

Calling Somalia a “failed state” has become a reflex in international discourse. But repetition is not accuracy. Somalia’s failure is not the state itself — it is the recurring failure of those entrusted to lead it. States do not appoint relatives, reward loyalists, auction public property, or mistake personal power for national service. Leaders do.
Somalia holds the fundamental ingredients for national success: a strategic location linking Africa, the Middle East, and global trade routes; abundant natural resources; a youthful population; and a society that has shown extraordinary resilience through decades of conflict and institutional fragility. The tragedy is not a lack of potential — it is the chronic failure of successive leaderships to convert that potential into governance.
Patronage as Policy
For decades, corruption, nepotism, and patronage have hollowed out Somalia’s public institutions. Public office is too often treated as private inheritance rather than public trust: merit waits outside while clan affiliation and political loyalty are shown in first. Somalia’s political elite have mastered one skill above all — turning temporary political arrangements into permanent systems of patronage. Where loyalty is promoted faster than competence, institutional performance becomes secondary to political survival, ministries manage coalitions rather than deliver services, and national planning gives way to the next political fire.
Accountability mechanisms have fared no better. Oversight institutions remain weak, financial transparency inadequate, and enforcement inconsistent. When accountability becomes selective, corruption stops being individual misconduct and becomes an operating system — leaving citizens to wonder whether audits are meant to catch irregularities or simply record them.
This is not merely a governance problem. Corruption and administrative dysfunction deter investment, constrain economic diversification, and drive youth unemployment. Weak institutions also blunt the state’s ability to counter terrorism, transnational crime, and illicit finance — no country can secure itself while hollowing out the institutions meant to provide that security.
Speeches Without Reform
Somalia has never lacked speeches promising reform; it has lacked reforms that survive the speech. Every administration arrives promising transformation; too many leave behind unfinished institutions and recycled slogans. If declarations built nations, Somalia would already rank among the most developed.
Yet Somalia should not be defined by its governance failures alone. Its people continue to invest, educate, build businesses, and demonstrate more confidence in the country’s future than much of its political class has earned. The strategic location, growing commercial sector, regional integration, and youthful demography remain intact. What has been inconsistent is the leadership responsible for managing them.
The Way Forward
Somalia’s future depends less on inventing new institutions than on letting existing ones function with integrity and independence: constitutional governance, an impartial judiciary, transparent public finance, merit-based recruitment, and accountable security institutions. Above all, it requires leaders who treat public office as a constitutional responsibility, not a personal investment.
Somalia’s obstacle is not a shortage of capable citizens or national resilience. It is the recurring habit of conflating the state with the government, the government with the ruling elite, and the national interest with personal survival. Countries rarely fail for want of ability — they falter when leadership chooses patronage over professionalism, and loyalty over competence.
Somalia is not condemned to instability. Its challenge is not state failure — it is leadership failure. Once governance rewards merit over proximity and accountability over impunity, Somalia’s defining trait will no longer be its resilience in surviving bad leadership, but its capacity to prosper under good leadership.

By Abdiladif Ahmed

Calling Somalia a “failed state” has become a reflex in international discourse. But repetition is not accuracy. Somalia’s failure is not the state itself — it is the recurring failure of those entrusted to lead it. States do not appoint relatives, reward loyalists, auction public property, or mistake personal power for national service. Leaders do.
Somalia holds the fundamental ingredients for national success: a strategic location linking Africa, the Middle East, and global trade routes; abundant natural resources; a youthful population; and a society that has shown extraordinary resilience through decades of conflict and institutional fragility. The tragedy is not a lack of potential — it is the chronic failure of successive leaderships to convert that potential into governance.
Patronage as Policy
For decades, corruption, nepotism, and patronage have hollowed out Somalia’s public institutions. Public office is too often treated as private inheritance rather than public trust: merit waits outside while clan affiliation and political loyalty are shown in first. Somalia’s political elite have mastered one skill above all — turning temporary political arrangements into permanent systems of patronage. Where loyalty is promoted faster than competence, institutional performance becomes secondary to political survival, ministries manage coalitions rather than deliver services, and national planning gives way to the next political fire.
Accountability mechanisms have fared no better. Oversight institutions remain weak, financial transparency inadequate, and enforcement inconsistent. When accountability becomes selective, corruption stops being individual misconduct and becomes an operating system — leaving citizens to wonder whether audits are meant to catch irregularities or simply record them.
This is not merely a governance problem. Corruption and administrative dysfunction deter investment, constrain economic diversification, and drive youth unemployment. Weak institutions also blunt the state’s ability to counter terrorism, transnational crime, and illicit finance — no country can secure itself while hollowing out the institutions meant to provide that security.
Speeches Without Reform
Somalia has never lacked speeches promising reform; it has lacked reforms that survive the speech. Every administration arrives promising transformation; too many leave behind unfinished institutions and recycled slogans. If declarations built nations, Somalia would already rank among the most developed.
Yet Somalia should not be defined by its governance failures alone. Its people continue to invest, educate, build businesses, and demonstrate more confidence in the country’s future than much of its political class has earned. The strategic location, growing commercial sector, regional integration, and youthful demography remain intact. What has been inconsistent is the leadership responsible for managing them.
The Way Forward
Somalia’s future depends less on inventing new institutions than on letting existing ones function with integrity and independence: constitutional governance, an impartial judiciary, transparent public finance, merit-based recruitment, and accountable security institutions. Above all, it requires leaders who treat public office as a constitutional responsibility, not a personal investment.
Somalia’s obstacle is not a shortage of capable citizens or national resilience. It is the recurring habit of conflating the state with the government, the government with the ruling elite, and the national interest with personal survival. Countries rarely fail for want of ability — they falter when leadership chooses patronage over professionalism, and loyalty over competence.
Somalia is not condemned to instability. Its challenge is not state failure — it is leadership failure. Once governance rewards merit over proximity and accountability over impunity, Somalia’s defining trait will no longer be its resilience in surviving bad leadership, but its capacity to prosper under good leadership.

Forget the framing of Somalia “risking” fragmentation. It is already happening. Three federal member states have suspended relations with Mogadishu since 2024. A breakaway region got its first-ever sovereign recognition in December. The president is governing on a legally contested term extension. This isn’t a warning sign — it’s the current state of play.
What actually happened: Puntland pulled recognition of the federal government back in March 2024.[14] Jubaland followed in November 2024 after Mogadishu slapped a treason warrant on its president.[14] Then, on March 4–5, 2026, Parliament rammed through a permanent constitution — ending the 2012 provisional framework, extending presidential terms from four years to five, locking in a one-person-one-vote system — without Puntland, Jubaland, or the opposition coalition on board.[10],[8] President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s original mandate expired May 15, 2026. The new amendments retroactively gave him another year anyway.[9]
The third state nobody’s talking about: South West State suspended ties with Mogadishu too, on March 17, 2026 — accusing the federal government of arming local militias and pushing unconstitutional centralization. The Somali Future Council (now Puntland + Jubaland + the Salvation Forum) backed the move within hours.[11] It didn’t last: the Somali National Army rolled in and installed a federal loyalist by March 30.[11] That’s the tell. Mogadishu is now willing to use troops, not just politics, to reverse a state’s defection — which means Puntland and Jubaland aren’t watching a hypothetical, they’re watching a preview.
Somaliland got there first. On December 26, 2025, Israel recognized Somaliland as a sovereign, independent state — the first UN member ever to do so, after three decades of Somaliland governing itself with no international recognition at all.[1],[2] Netanyahu called it consistent with the Abraham Accords; Somaliland’s president said they’d seek to join.[1] Almost everyone else objected: 14 of 15 UN Security Council members pushed back at an emergency session (the US was the lone holdout),[3],[4],[5] and the African Union, the OIC, the Arab League, and IGAD all separately condemned it.[5],[6] None of that stopped Israel’s foreign minister from visiting Hargeisa a week and a half later.[7]
Why the objections don’t matter as much as they sound: universal condemnation from every relevant regional body didn’t reverse anything. That’s the actual lesson for Puntland and Jubaland — international disapproval is not a check on this kind of move, it’s just noise that accompanies it.
Who else has skin in the game: Turkey’s the biggest external player by far — Camp TURKSOM, the Gorgor special forces it trained, a naval presence, and now F-16s based in Mogadishu since early 2026.[13] That buildup is tied to Mohamud personally, not to federal institutions broadly. Gulf states run their own relationships with Puntland’s and Somaliland’s ports directly. Add Israel’s new interest in Somaliland — including quiet talk of it as a relocation site for Gazans — and you’ve got a country where outside powers are increasingly betting on factions, not on Mogadishu.
Where this goes: Two realistic outcomes remain. Either a negotiated confederation — foreign policy, currency, and defense held centrally, everything else devolved to regions that are already running themselves — or continued piecemeal fragmentation, state by state, with Mogadishu using force where it still can (South West State) and losing ground where it can’t (Puntland, Jubaland, Somaliland). A clean single breakup isn’t really on the table. This messier version already is.

——-

Sources
Reuters, “Israel recognises Somaliland, Somalia’s breakaway region, as independent state,” December 26, 2025.
CNN, “Somaliland: Israel becomes first country to formally recognize region as independent state,” December 26, 2025.
Times of Israel, “UN Security Council to convene emergency meeting on Israel’s Somaliland recognition,” December 28, 2025.
France 24, “UN ambassadors condemn Israel’s recognition of Somaliland,” December 30, 2025.
Peoples Dispatch, “Global outcry against Israel’s recognition of Somaliland,” January 2, 2026.
AllAfrica, “African Union Condemns Israel’s Recognition of Somaliland,” January 8, 2026.
PassBlue, “Israeli Actions in Africa Complicate Somalia’s Presidency of the UN Security Council,” January 7, 2026.
ConstitutionNet, “From Provisional to Permanent Constitution? Assessing the End of Somalia’s Constitutional Review Process.”
ICNL, Somalia Civic Freedom Monitor, updated 2026.
Eu SEE / Hivos, “Jubaland Opposition to Federal Constitutional Process Threatens Inclusive Civic Participation,” March 10, 2026.
Horn Review, “Meles Zenawi’s Prescience: The Case for SWS, Puntland and Jubaland and the Domino Effect,” March 26, 2026.
African Security Analysis, “Monthly Forecast: Somalia,” June 24, 2026.
Middle East Forum, “Turkey Holds Somalia’s Constitution Hostage,” June 4, 2026.
Wikipedia, “Constitutional Crisis in Somalia,” and “Israel–Somaliland relations.”

Somalia is entering one of its most precarious moments in years. Washington has moved to terminate the UN’s logistical backbone for the African Union mission (AUSSOM) by year-end, even as it deepens direct engagement with Puntland, Jubaland and Somaliland outside Mogadishu. This week, both tracks converged: troop-contributing countries gathered in Kampala for an emergency summit on the mission’s survival, while a US congressional and AFRICOM delegation toured Kismayo, Garowe and Hargeisa. Together, these moves mark a shift from a Mogadishu-centric security architecture toward a more fragmented, regionally driven one — with real consequences for state-building, counter–Al-Shabaab operations and humanitarian access.
The UNSOS cutoff: the central shock
On July 1, 2026, the US Mission to the African Union informed the AU Commission that Washington would not support renewing the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) beyond AUSSOM’s current mandate, which expires December 31, 2026. The US said it would not oppose renewing AUSSOM’s Chapter VII mandate itself, but would oppose any renewal that includes UNSOS or other UN logistical or operational support — support that currently underwrites roughly $500 million a year in fuel, food, medical evacuation, transport and equipment reimbursement for AUSSOM’s approximately 11,800 uniformed personnel. Without it, the mission is widely assessed as operationally unsustainable heading into 2027.
This followed, but is distinct from, a separate January episode: the US suspended all assistance to the Somali Federal Government on January 7, 2026, after accusing officials of destroying a US-funded WFP warehouse in Mogadishu and seizing 76 metric tons of food aid. That freeze was short-lived — Washington resumed WFP food distribution on January 29 after Mogadishu acknowledged responsibility — but it set the tone for a year of hardening US frustration with the federal government’s governance and accountability, culminating in the July UNSOS decision.
Kampala: contingency planning under pressure
Uganda is hosting the second Extraordinary Summit of AUSSOM Troop-Contributing Countries (Burundi, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Somalia) at Speke Resort Munyonyo, July 29–31, under the theme “To Sustain the Stabilisation Process in Somalia.” Chiefs of defense met first, followed by defense ministers, with a heads-of-state summit closing the gathering. Uganda’s CDF, Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has already warned that reduced funding is forcing troop-contributing countries to scale back operations and that “alternative arrangements” are now unavoidable. The summit’s recommendations go to the AU Peace and Security Council and, ultimately, the UN Security Council, which must decide in December whether — and in what form — AUSSOM continues.
Washington’s regional tour
The convergence is not accidental. This week’s Congress-AFRICOM delegation to Kismayo, Garowe and Hargeisa is the latest in a pattern of direct US engagement with federal member states that has intensified through 2026 — including a May visit by Acting Ambassador Justin Davis and AFRICOM’s Col. Shane Jones to Garowe, where talks centered on Puntland’s minerals, fisheries and oil potential rather than traditional aid. That visit came days after Puntland formally withdrew recognition of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s administration, when his four-year mandate expired on May 15 — a rupture that has hardened federal-regional distrust well beyond the routine friction visible in earlier disputes, such as Mogadishu blocking aircraft carrying armed security details for regional leaders ahead of unity talks.
Puntland, Jubaland and Somaliland control the ports, airports and counterterrorism assets that make them natural interlocutors as Mogadishu’s leverage erodes. Each has calibrated its response differently:
Puntland frames US engagement as validation of its role as security partner and investment gateway, pairing counter-ISIS gains in the Calmiskaad mountains with a “trade, not aid” pitch on minerals, fisheries and hydrocarbons. It has previously used access as leverage when it felt sidelined, and its withdrawal of recognition from Mogadishu signals it will keep doing so.
Jubaland stays close to Washington on counter-Al-Shabaab cooperation while keeping its language studiously “national unity” rather than separatist — pragmatic hedging rather than open rupture with Mogadishu.
Somaliland folds every high-level US visit into its long-running case for recognition, pointing to its elections and to Berbera’s port as evidence it is the more reliable partner — even as Washington officially maintains a “one Somalia” policy.
Across all three, the pattern is the same: public hospitality toward the US, private conditionality on funding and control, and hedging against a Mogadishu that may lose both AUSSOM’s backing and Washington’s patience at the same time.
Humanitarian and security stakes
Roughly 6.5 million Somalis face acute food insecurity in 2026, and any degradation of AUSSOM’s footprint risks further restricting humanitarian access in contested areas. Al-Shabaab retains the capacity to exploit reduced patrols and delayed logistics, and localized clan competition over land and water continues independent of the national-level crisis.
Three scenarios
Managed drawdown with regional compacts. Kampala produces a stop-gap financing plan, and the US formalizes bilateral security arrangements with the federal member states — stabilizing Somalia around a patchwork of externally backed regional security zones as Mogadishu’s authority narrows.
Operational contraction, insurgent gains. Without alternative financing, AUSSOM contracts to major towns, ceding rural ground to Al-Shabaab and worsening humanitarian access.
Political rupture. Deepening federal-regional mistrust — already visible in Puntland’s withdrawal of recognition — hardens into parallel governance, with federal member states and Somaliland negotiating security and economic arrangements directly with external partners, bypassing Mogadishu altogether.
The center is losing its monopoly on both security and aid. Increasingly, the Horn’s next chapter is being written as much in Garoowe, Kismayo and Hargeysa as in Mogadishu — and in Kampala’s emergency planning for AUSSOM’s survival.