A Grim Discovery After the Conclusion of the Galkayo Community Conference
The much-anticipated Galkayo Community Conference has come to a close. What should have been a launchpad for meaningful change, recovery, and governance reawakening has instead revealed an ugly, unbearable truth: Galkayo is a broken, bleeding city—betrayed by the very institutions and leaders who claim to represent it.
The façade of progress and development carefully erected by government mouthpieces has collapsed under the weight of undeniable reality. Conference deliberations and post-event assessments have unearthed a deeply distressing picture of Galkayo—a city drowning, literally and metaphorically, in abandonment, dysfunction, and despair.
1. A City Sinking Under the Sky
Every rainfall now brings catastrophe. The city’s drainage systems are either nonexistent or choked with years of neglect. School buildings—once iconic centers of learning like Bardacad School, now stand shuttered, flooded, and crumbling. The collapse of landmark educational institutions after repeated submersion in rainwater is more than a failure of infrastructure; it is a direct assault on the future of the next generation.
The government’s excuse? “This is no different from the rest of the country.”
Let that sink in.
This dismissive, lazy, and grossly irresponsible statement encapsulates the rot that has infected governance. Galkayo is not a victim of nature—it is a victim of state and community negligence.
2. Lawlessness Reigns as the Police Stand Powerless
The city’s police force is a shell of its former self—under-equipped, underpaid, and overwhelmed. Banditry, inter-clan killings, and revenge crimes go unpunished. Police morale is nonexistent. There is no civilian trust. Galkayo’s law enforcement institutions have been systematically weakened to the point of irrelevance.
Security is now in the hands of whoever holds a gun. Justice is bought or executed on the streets.
Is this what the state calls governance?
3. Financial Drain: Galkayo’s Wealth Transferred, Not Invested
It is no secret anymore: Galkayo’s monthly revenue is siphoned off to Garowe under the pretext of state revenue. This is outright theft disguised as administrative routine. What the people of Galkayo pay in taxes never comes back to them in services, investment, or development. Instead, their money builds office towers, guest houses, and highways in far-off cities—while Galkayo remains a mud pit of broken streets and shattered hopes.
This is not federalism.
This is exploitation.
4. Infrastructure in Ruins—No Road, No Airport, No Dignity
What remains of Galkayo’s roads are barely passable trails. Its airport is a decaying relic. Economic infrastructure that once connected the city to the rest of the Horn of Africa has deteriorated beyond repair. In other cities, the government builds. In Galkayo, it demolishes by omission. The private sector has fled. Investors avoid it. The youth emigrate en masse.
There is no mobility, no trade, no future.
5. A Social Fabric Torn by Tribal Hatred and State Failure
Tribal hatred and mistrust have taken deep root in Galkayo. Traditional elders once respected for wisdom and reconciliation now openly hate one another—fuelled by manipulation, power struggles, and the absence of a neutral state apparatus to mediate. The government has not only failed to address social fragmentation—it has profited from it, turning clans into tools of political control.
Today, Galkayo’s strongest export is its people—fleeing poverty, insecurity, and hopelessness. Its most educated sons and daughters are now in Nairobi, Addis Ababa, or Istanbul. Its youth fight wars that aren’t theirs. Its women endure famine, fear, and silence.
6. The Government’s Excuses Are an Insult
The claim that Galkayo’s disaster is “just like the rest of the country” is not only untrue—it is cruel. Galkayo has borne the brunt of every conflict, every betrayal, and every failed promise. The deliberate underdevelopment, marginalization, and mistreatment of the city cannot be glossed over by lazy comparisons.
This is not normal.
This is not acceptable.
This is deliberate destruction through neglect.
Call to Action: Enough is Enough
The Galkayo Community Conference was supposed to ignite a movement. Now it must fuel a revolution of civic resistance and demand for justice. The people of Galkayo cannot afford to wait for Garowe, or Mogadishu, or foreign donors to rescue them.
We demand:
1. Immediate restoration of basic infrastructure—roads, schools, drainage, and healthcare.
2. Autonomous control over local revenue, with transparent budgeting and public oversight.
3. Reconstruction and reequipping of the Galkayo Police Force, free from political interference.
4. An independent inter-clan reconciliation initiative, protected from state co-optation.
5. Accountability mechanisms for the state institutions that have siphoned public funds from Galkayo for over a decade.
Conclusion: Galkayo Will Not Be Silent
This post-conference report is not a lament—it is a warning. The people of Galkayo will not accept second-class citizenship in their own homeland. Those who have allowed this crisis to fester must know: silence has ended.
The rain may drown the streets, but it will not drown our voices.
Galkayo lives. Galkayo resists. Galkayo will rise again—with or without you.
By WDM Editorial Team
August 2, 2025
Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN) 