When Vision and Patriotism Unappreciated – Why Puntland Must Weigh Options

For more than a quarter century, Puntland has been among Somalia’s strongest advocates of federal unity — investing political capital, exercising restraint through successive national crises, and championing constitutional governance in the belief that partnership, not domination, would hold the country together. Today, many Puntlanders are asking an unavoidable question: how long can loyalty be sustained when it is repeatedly answered with marginalization?
Puntland has built functioning institutions, maintained relative security, and contributed substantially to counterterrorism, maritime security, and state-building — often while national institutions elsewhere struggled to function at all. Yet many in the region see these contributions as unreciprocated: the Federal Constitution, they argue, has been applied selectively — invoked when convenient for Mogadishu, set aside when it constrains centralized power. Rather than being treated as a model of stable regional governance, Puntland’s autonomy is, in this view, treated as an obstacle to be managed.
This reframes the central question. It is no longer whether Puntland has met its obligations to Somalia, but whether successive federal governments have met their constitutional obligations to Puntland — and whether Puntland needs Mogadishu more than Mogadishu needs it. Many now conclude the region gives more to the federal project than it receives back in equal representation, resource-sharing, or genuine partnership. That frustration extends to Puntland’s own leadership too: years of compromise without reciprocal guarantees, and the absence of a coherent long-term strategy, have arguably weakened the state’s negotiating position.