Puntland State is not under siege because of destiny, geography, or foreign conspiracies alone. It is under siege because of abandonment—the quiet, systematic abandonment of governance, reform, cohesion, and duty by those entrusted to protect and advance it.
Let us speak plainly.
The Puntland State administration abandoned democratisation—the long-promised one person, one vote project—without explanation, roadmap, or accountability. What was once presented as a historic transition from clan arithmetic to citizen sovereignty was casually shelved, leaving behind political cynicism and a vacuum filled by opportunists. Democracy was not defeated by insecurity; it was defeated by lack of political will.
At the same time, the administration failed to build internal cohesion and regional security, the very foundations upon which any democratic experiment must stand. The consequences are now visible and costly. SSC-Khaatumo was not merely “let go”; it was allowed to mutate into a political collection centre for anti-Puntland elements, a staging ground where Mogadishu’s long game against Puntland found fertile ground. This did not happen overnight, nor was it inevitable. It happened because Puntland chose silence over strategy.
While Mogadishu played chess—patient, layered, and ruthless—Puntland responded with checkers: reactive, predictable, and unserious.
Villa Somalia was given a free hand to destabilise Puntland, politically and in security, without counter-measures, without diplomatic escalation, without strategic containment. No red lines were drawn. No costs were imposed. No coherent Puntland doctrine toward Mogadishu exists today—only ad-hoc reactions and press statements after the damage is done.
Internally, the rot deepened.
Power has been hoarded at the presidency, not delegated. Puntland today is governed like a one-office state. There is no meaningful decentralisation of administrative or executive authority. Ministries exist in name, not in function. Most have no capacity, no operating budgets, no policy units, no research desks, no strategic planning wings. They are shells—waiting rooms for political loyalty, not engines of governance.
A government without budgets is not a government; it is a façade.
A government without research and strategic thinking cannot navigate a region as volatile as the Horn of Africa. Yet Puntland has no standing strategic council, no geopolitical risk unit, no security foresight mechanism. Decisions are improvised, not designed. Crises are managed through travel and absence, not presence and command.
And then come the theatrics.
From time to time, the President summons “sectors of society” to the palace—intellectuals, elders, youth, former officials. The cameras roll. Statements are issued. Photos are taken. And then—nothing. No white papers. No policy shifts. No institutional follow-through. Governance by optics has become the defining feature of the Puntland State Presidency.
Consultations without consequences are not leadership; they are political theatre.
Most troubling of all is absentism at the height of crisis. The rapidly shifting geopolitics of the Horn of Africa—Red Sea militarisation, proxy alignments, Somaliland gambits, Mogadishu’s centralisation drive—do not excuse Puntland leaders from their obligations. On the contrary, they demand presence. A state facing internal fragmentation and external pressure cannot be governed from airport lounges and foreign hotels.
Security crises are not managed remotely. States are not defended by delegation to fate.
Puntland was founded in 1998 as a self-correcting project—a polity built on consensus, decentralisation, and collective leadership. That spirit has been betrayed. What we see today is stagnation masked as stability, silence mistaken for prudence, and optics replacing substance.
History is unforgiving to leaders who confuse endurance with achievement.
Puntland still has the human capital, the legitimacy, and the strategic location to reclaim its role as a stabilising anchor in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. But that requires a rupture with the current mode of governance:
real decentralisation, real security reform, real strategy toward Mogadishu, real democratic timelines, and above all—leaders present at the seat of duty.
The house is burning. Photo-ops will not put out the fire.
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