WHY IMPLEMENTATION OF FEDERAL SYSTEM IN SOMALIA FACES CHALLENGES

Let us go straight to the facts. These are the unsaid and politically inconvenient facts:

1. Almost all elected federal presidents starting from Sheikh Sharif Ahmed were anti-constitutionalists/anti- federalists.
2. Almost all Federal Members States are artificial creations, lacking adequate community involvement in choosing their respective leaders, especially Hirshabelle, GalMudug, and Jubaland. Moreover, Jubaland, including Kismayo, is, in fact, an occupied land – natives have no say in running the pseudo-administration there, and have no representation.
3. Puntland State isolationist policies for more than a decade gave way to anti-federalist forces in South-Central Somalia.
4. The propaganda-prone, gullible, uninformed masses of Somalia fell victims to the falsehoods of Centralist and city-state proponents.
5. The absence of counter-programing to the vicious falsehoods spread on federalism by Formajo’s Social Media Warriors (“Cayayaanka Baraha Bulshada CBB).”
6. Turkey, a NATO state and major investor in Mogadishu and Villa Somalia, is a centralist and historically military government that is strongly opposed to decentralisation ideas in dealing with foreign countries.
7. Bankrupt Somali intellectual power and theorists on the subject of Federalism.
8. The inertia of old habits and thinking of older Somali generations that hardly pass away.
9. Absence of competent, enlightened, free press in the country.
10. Most importantly, poor, unrepresentative, rubber-stamped LEGISLATIVE bodies in all levels at State and Federal governments.