WDM – Critical Analysis, News & Commentaries
20 November 2025
Welcome to the Federal Republic of Fee-Somalia — a place where entering your own homeland is now a geopolitical adventure, a bureaucratic lottery, and a fiscal ambush. In this country, the price of stepping onto Somali soil depends entirely on which political fiefdom stamped your paper, which desk warlord decided to innovate a fresh “revenue stream,” and which checkpoint commander woke up today convinced he runs an independent republic.
Somalia — the state that cannot run an election, cannot secure its capital, and cannot unify a single institution — has mastered only one specialty:
charging its own dual citizens multiple fees to enter their own country, proudly and illegally.
This isn’t governance.
This isn’t federalism.
This isn’t even clan politics.
This is institutional schizophrenia performed live on a national stage.
Visa Fees by Geography: A Tragicomedy of Errors
Try using a Mogadishu visa in Garowe or Hargeisa.
Try explaining your Somali citizenship to officials acting like UN border forces.
One country.
Different fees.
Different systems.
Zero shame.
Somalia is now the only country where nationality is valid in theory, invalid in practice, and negotiable at the checkpoint. This is not autonomy. It is not federal experimentation. This is raw incompetence marketed as policy innovation.
A Government at War With Itself
The world politely calls Somalia a “federal state.”
In reality, it is a quilt of territorial toll-booths disguised as governments.
Every region behaves like a mini-embassy:
Minting fees.
Inventing regulations.
Treating fellow Somali regions as foreign threats.
Which government charges its own citizens double entry?
Which country negotiates with itself at airports?
Which leadership watches this circus and says, “Excellent — proceed”?
Only in Somalia do leaders treat parts of their own territory as enemy states — and then fly around the world to beg donors for funds to “strengthen national unity.”
Diplomacy of the Absurd
You cannot shame people who feel no shame.
The federal government pretends it oversees one immigration system.
Regional authorities pretend they each run their own country.
Travellers — Somali or foreign — are collateral damage in this somatic identity crisis.
Somalia is the only place where:
A Somali citizen becomes an undocumented alien by crossing provincial lines.
A Somali passport is recognized in foreign capitals but invalid in parts of Somalia.
Visa rules are determined by feuding political factions, not laws or institutions.
Even the African Union, famous for its patience with chaos, looks at Somalia and whispers:
“This is getting embarrassing.”
No Solutions. No Shame. No Leadership.
Fixing this mess requires:
A committee → that needs a workshop → that demands a donor-funded retreat → that requires per diems → that necessitates new visa fees → and so the snake eats its tail.
The stalemate is deliberate.
Because chaos is profitable.
Shame requires accountability — and none exists.
Reform threatens revenue — so reforms never come.
WDM Verdict
This situation is not merely dysfunctional-
it is insane.
A country that cannot guarantee a unified entry system for its own citizens has lost its administrative spine. Somalia has reduced governance to a roadside kiosk economy and turned immigration into political ransom.
Until leaders stop behaving like rival airport franchise operators, Somalia will remain a country united by passport covers and divided by entry fees.
WDM will continue exposing this rotten governance until someone, somewhere in Somalia’s political theatre decides to behave like a statesman instead of a checkpoint cashier.
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