The Addis Abdication: Auctioning Federalism to Stay at Villa

By Ismail H. Warsame, WDM Editorial Board

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s pilgrimage to Addis Ababa is a spectacle of tragic repetition. Under the gilded ceilings of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s palace, amidst the sterile choreography of state visits, a far more cynical transaction was being negotiated. This was not diplomacy; it was the liquidation of sovereignty, a desperate barter of Somalia’s hard-won federal structure for a short-term political lifeline.

The agenda, pieced together from diplomatic cables and strategic leaks, reveals a mission of stunning paradox. The President, who once cloaked himself in the rhetoric of nationalist resolve, now travels to a historical regional hegemon not to discuss mutual interests, but to solicit its intervention in Somalia’s most delicate internal affairs: the fractious politics of Jubaland and the Gedo region. His initiative, dubbed “New Jubaland,” is not an organic political movement but a contrivance—a proxy project engineered in the sealed chambers of Villa Somalia. The formula is familiar: identify local dissent, infuse it with Damul Jadiid patronage, and seek a foreign power’s imprimatur to legitimize the illegitimate.

The profound absurdity lies in the betrayal. Federalism, however imperfect, remains the only constitutional framework preventing a return to the centralized ruin that plunged the nation into chaos. It is the fragile covenant between Mogadishu and the regions. Yet here is the President, not building bridges but burning them, offering this very covenant as a bargaining chip to an external actor. He is not strengthening the state; he is dismembering it to retain a piece of the throne.

For Abiy Ahmed, the calculus is clear. He acquires a pliant partner in Mogadishu, gains a lever to control the strategic Jubba corridor, and burnishes his credentials as an indispensable regional power broker. For President Hassan Sheikh, the gain is purely optical—a staged display of relevance and international backing, even if that backing comes at the cost of national dignity and long-term stability. It is the politics of the sugar rush: intensely sweet now, destined for a debilitating crash.

On the ground, the consequences are already felt. The people of Gedo are subjected to yet another abstract political experiment conceived in a distant capital. How many times must the map be redrawn from Mogadishu before leadership understands that nations are built on consent, not coercion? This administration’s track record—the political engineering in Galmudug, the manipulation in the Southwest, the invention of Hirshabelle—suggests a compulsive refusal to learn. This “New Jubaland” is merely the latest chapter in a doomed saga of centralist revivalism.

The handshakes in Addis Ababa represent more than a diplomatic misstep; they are an abdication of a national vision. Somalia does not need a president who seeks validation in foreign capitals to wage war on his own federal members. It needs a leader who will return to Mogadishu, open the constitution, and engage in the arduous, unglamorous work of building a genuine, negotiated federation.

President Hassan Sheikh, however, seems condemned to replay the past. Today’s photo-op may provide a fleeting sense of victory, but it is a pyrrhic one. When the flags are furled and the delegations depart, Somalia is left with a sobering reality: its leadership has once again chosen the path of dependency, and the bill for this diplomatic theater will be paid by generations to come.

WDM VERDICT:
A president who seeks a foreign power’s blessing to subdue his own people does not practice statecraft. He engages in surrender. Federalism was not merely discussed in Addis Ababa; it was placed on the auction block.

WDM – Talking Truth to Power.