“HSM: A President or Just the Hawiye Tribal Chairman?”

In Mogadishu’s marble palace, the man in the chair still believes the Somali state is his clan’s chessboard. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the self-proclaimed “national reconciler,” has spent two terms proving that he is nothing more than a tribal bookkeeper—counting how many Darood heads he can keep out of Villa Somalia’s banquet hall.

During his first season of Villa sitcom, he flopped spectacularly at stopping Jubaland, a Darood-dominated federal member state, from surfacing. Furious that the “wrong clan” had managed to organize itself, Mohamud scribbled together two artificial states—Hirshabelle (a half-baked wedding between Hiraan and Shabelle) and Galmudug (the constitutional miscarriage of central Somalia). These were intended to be anti-Darood sandbags, stacked hurriedly to block Jubaland’s rise.

When that circus failed to satisfy his clan arithmetic, Hassan Sheikh dusted off the script from Mohamed “the naïve” Farmaajo, his predecessor who mistook dismantling federalism for statesmanship. Mohamud, instead of correcting Farmaajo’s constitutional vandalism, doubled down on it with tribal relish. His campaign? Harass Puntland and Jubaland—because nothing screams “national unity” like targeting presumably Darood federal states for extinction.

And when even that effort stumbled on the rock-hard resilience of Garowe and Kismayo, Hassan Sheikh went for the nuclear option: invent another Galmudug clone for an unsuspecting Darood subclan constituency, the Dhulbahante clan to fight off Puntland state. Forget the Constitution, forget federalism, forget the state-building project—what matters is blocking Puntland at all costs, even if Somalia itself burns in the process.

In his twisted tribal doctrine, “nation-building” equals Darood dismantling, and constitutional law equals whatever satisfies Beesha Hawiye and his accomplice: His cousins-in-arms and family members.  He waves the flag of Somalia, but the reality is uglier: Hassan Sheikh isn’t a president; he’s the chairman of a clan militia disguised as a government.

History will not remember him as a unifier, a peacemaker, or even a competent politician. It will remember him as the man who tried to shrink Somalia into a Mogadishu-sized clan fiefdom, and failed—again and again.

In the freshly carpeted chamber of the North East State of Somalia’s Parliament—where microphones squeak louder than the MPs’ brains—a solemn debate unfolded. The Speaker, that great traffic officer of Somali politics, banged the gavel and declared:

“Let us debate where we go from here.”

Translation: We are lost, gentlemen. Open the floor for confusion.

The first honourable member, a man with a voice borrowed from BBC Somali Service, rose gallantly:

“Mr Speaker, our political and economic options are dire. We have difficult decisions to make.”

The House clapped politely, mostly because clapping covered the fact that no one understood what “dire” meant.

A rival MP leapt up, wagging his finger as though he was disciplining goats:

“Mr Speaker, I must remind the Honourable Member that what he speaks of are the tasks of the executive branch. We are legislators, not fishermen, not port-builders, not ministers.”

Translation: We only chew qat and shout Point of Order, nothing else.

But another MP, tired of watching Puntland and Villa Somalia turn their parliaments into echo chambers, insisted:

“Mr Speaker, although we are a legislative assembly, we can’t afford to become a rubber stamp! We must set priorities:

1. Recognition by Central Government of North East State.

2. Reconciliation with Puntland.

3. Acquiring a seaport—we are landlocked!”

The chamber gasped. The word “seaport” was treated as if he had invoked jinn. Acquiring a seaport without even owning a single fishing boat? It was like a nomad demanding an airport while his camel starves.

Finally, the wisest elder MP, who had spent 20 years losing elections but never giving up qat chewing, rose with his final truth bomb:

“Mr Speaker, let us not kid ourselves. We are part of the 4.5 clan formula. We have our share through Puntland. We must know our political constituency.”

Translation: Stop dreaming of sovereignty. Stick to your quota like a good child.

And so the debate ended, not with a resolution, not with a plan, but with the same Somali parliamentary tradition: chaos, laughter, and adjournment for tea. The only “option” agreed upon was that the Speaker’s microphone needed replacing.

Thus, the North East Parliament proved once again the eternal Somali principle: parliaments do not govern, they perform stand-up comedy at the nation’s expense.