WAPMEN Editorial

When a sovereign state is openly violated, silence is never innocent. It is calculative.
In the wake of Israeli aggression—recognizing a region of Somalia as an independent state in brazen violation of international law—the world did not speak with one voice. Many did the right thing. Regional blocs, international organizations, and responsible states rose to defend Somalia’s territorial integrity, the sanctity of borders, and the fragile legal order that still pretends to govern international relations.
Others chose to wait.
This strategic silence—particularly from Somalia’s immediate neighborhood—is neither accidental nor benign. It reveals two uncomfortable truths that Mogadishu, Garowe, Hargeisa, and every Somali citizen must confront without illusion.

Silence Option One: Sinister Self-Interest

Some actors see Somalia not as a state to be defended, but as a chessboard to be exploited.
In a region already saturated with proxy wars, port rivalries, military basing, and intelligence games, Somalia’s fragmentation is not a tragedy—it is an opportunity. Silence, in this context, is consent by omission. It keeps doors open for future leverage:
Access to ports and airspace
Strategic footholds along the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden
Influence over fractured Somali authorities desperate for recognition or protection.
For these actors, condemning Israeli recognition would be inconvenient. It would limit their room to maneuver. So they wait, watch, and calculate—hoping Somalia’s weakness will ripen into concession.

Silence Option Two: Extortion by Delay

Others are practicing a more refined diplomacy: transactional patience.
They are withholding public support not because they disagree with Somalia’s position, but because they want something in return—quietly, privately, and urgently.
Votes. Contracts. Security arrangements. Diplomatic alignment. Intelligence cooperation.
This is not principled neutrality. It is leverage politics. Somalia’s sovereignty becomes a bargaining chip; its crisis, a negotiating table.
Time, they believe, will soften Somalia’s resolve.

International Law Is Not a Buffet

Let us be clear: the recognition of a breakaway region without the consent of the parent state violates the UN Charter, the principles of the United Nations, and the founding norms of the African Union. If these rules apply only when convenient, then no African state is safe—least of all those with internal tensions and unfinished nation-building projects.
Those who remain silent today are not hedging; they are eroding the very rules that protect them tomorrow.
Somalia Must Read the Room—Coldly
Somalia should welcome the solidarity it has received. But it must also document the silence.
History remembers who spoke when it mattered—and who calculated instead. Strategic ambiguity has consequences. When the precedent is set that borders can be redrawn by external actors, silence becomes complicity.
Somalia does not need heroes. It needs clarity.
And clarity begins with naming silence for what it is:
either self-interest masquerading as diplomacy,
or concessions dressed as patience.
Time will tell—but only if Somalia stops waiting for it to speak.

WAPMEN
Fearless analysis. Uncomfortable truths. No strategic silence.

There is a silent emergency stalking Somalia—not always announced by sirens, rarely the central debate in parliament, and too often a footnote in presidential speeches. It is the slow, grinding violence of an economic system that imports its prices and exports its sovereignty. The most damning question is not whether anyone is watching, but whether the watching is matched by action that reaches the poor.

A Country with a Currency It Cannot Control
Somalia’s economy runs on the US dollar, a foreign currency whose value is decided in Washington and global markets. When shocks hit—wars, banking crises, or interest rate hikes abroad—Somali households pay the price immediately. Bread costs more. Fuel spikes overnight.

This is the brutal arithmetic of a country that imports over 60% of its GDP. The poor are left naked before global storms. The woman selling vegetables earns in shillings but buys wholesale in dollars. The displaced family negotiates rent in a currency tied to recessions an ocean away.

The Illusion of Neutrality in a Digital Dollar Economy
Dollarization is not neutral; it is a regressive tax on the poor, but its mechanism is more modern than cash. The economy survives on fragile inflows of dollars from remittances (about 27% of GDP) and aid, which flow out just as fast to pay for imports, creating a chronic trade deficit exceeding $5 billion.

Most transactions use digital dollars via telecom networks. However, these companies can use the hard currency they collect for their own external business, creating an artificial scarcity of physical cash within Somalia. This paradox—a digital dollar economy starving for paper cash—drives up costs for everyone, especially those outside the digital fold.

The Chasm Between Institutional Reform and Daily Survival
Contrary to the claim that no one is watching, institutions are trying to build the watchtower in the middle of the storm. The Somali National Bureau of Statistics reports inflation, which was 3.9% as of October 2025. The Central Bank of Somalia (CBS) is actively reforming, with a dedicated policy group and a sequenced plan: first, build financial infrastructure and regulate mobile money; later, perhaps reintroduce a national currency.

Yet, these vital but technical reforms exist in a parallel universe to the daily crisis faced by the 54% of the population (over 10 million people) living below the poverty line. With nearly 400,000 youth entering the job market each year in a stagnant economy, per-capita income does not grow. This is the core disconnect: while experts design payment systems and regulations, mothers count coins that buy less every week.

Leaders Argue Over Power While the Foundation Cracks
The political sphere remains consumed by survival—the survival of leaders. Disputes over elections, federal power-sharing, and clan arithmetic create paralysis, preventing a unified response to the economic emergency.

While they quarrel, foreign powers and businesses deal with Somalia not as a sovereign state but as an unmanaged space, extracting ports, security contracts, and political loyalty. The state fragments, and the demographic pressure cooker ticks: 70% of the population is under 30, waiting for a future that is not being built at the speed it is needed.

What Must Be Said: The Fire and the Firehouse
A country that debates inflation statistics while ignoring the cost-of-living anguish is in crisis. A leadership that obsesses over staying in office while citizens sink into poverty is losing its way.

Somalia’s tragedy is not a lack of plans. It is the agonizing gap between long-term institutional rebuilding and immediate human desperation. The Central Bank is trying to rebuild the firehouse—creating a Financial Stability Committee, drafting new banking laws, launching national payment systems. But for the family watching their purchasing power burn, the reforms feel like a blueprint delivered as the embers fly.

The question is not “Who is watching the fire?” The CBS is watching. The Bureau of Statistics is measuring the smoke. The real, unanswered question is: Who will bridge the chasm between the reform documents in Mogadishu and the empty market stalls in Baidoa, Garowe, and Kismayo?

Until inflation, currency sovereignty, and social protection are treated with the same urgency as political survival, Somalia will remain what it is today: a nation where the house burns, not for lack of firefighters, but because they are building the fire engine next to the flames.

—

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https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP87T00289R000100460001-8.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com

A newly circulated declassified CIA document is being waved around as if it were a final arbiter of Somali history. It is not. On the critical question of the Somali resistance movements of the 1980s—and specifically the arrest of Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed—the document is factually wrong, historically careless, and politically misleading.
Let us be precise and put the record straight.
False Claim #1: Abdullahi Yusuf Opposed an SSDF–SNM Merger
False. Flatly false.
The document alleges that Abdullahi Yusuf opposed a merger between the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) and the Somali National Movement (SNM). This reverses reality.
Historical fact:
SSDF was the older, structured, and umbrella resistance movement—already composed of three organized factions—operating from Ethiopian territory years before SNM emerged as a major force. It was SNM that declined to join SSDF, not the other way around. The refusal was rooted in strategic autonomy and internal political calculations within SNM, not hostility or obstruction from SSDF leadership.
To suggest Abdullahi Yusuf blocked unity is to invert the burden of decision-making and misread the political dynamics of the era.
False Claim #2: Ethiopia Arrested Abdullahi Yusuf for Anti-Unity Politics
Again, false.
The CIA paper asserts that Ethiopian authorities detained Abdullahi Yusuf because he resisted inter-movement unity. That is a convenient fiction.
Historical fact:
Abdullahi Yusuf was arrested by order of Mengistu Haile-Mariam—not for opposing Somali unity, but for political disagreements over the control, direction, and independence of SSDF vis-à-vis Ethiopian security dictates. Addis Ababa expected compliance; Abdullahi Yusuf insisted on Somali decision-making autonomy.
That defiance had consequences.
This was a power struggle, not an ideological schism over unity.
What Really Happened
SSDF predated SNM and functioned as a multi-faction resistance platform.
SNM chose not to merge with SSDF; this was a strategic choice, not a rejection by SSDF.

Ethiopia arrested Abdullahi Yusuf because he resisted Ethiopian micromanagement of Somali resistance politics—not because he opposed unity.
The detention reflected Cold War patron–proxy tensions, not Somali inter-movement hostility.
These facts are well-known to participants, contemporaries, and serious historians of the Somali liberation era.
The Declassified Trap
Declassified does not mean accurate. Intelligence documents often capture:
Partial briefings
Informant bias.

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Strategic misinterpretation
Or outright political convenience
When such documents are lifted from their context and treated as gospel, history is not revealed—it is distorted.
Somalia’s past cannot be footnoted into existence by Langley memos written at a distance, filtered through regional agendas, and blind to internal Somali political realities.
WAPMEN Verdict
This CIA document fails the historical test. It misattributes motives, reverses agency, and erases the real cause of Abdullahi Yusuf’s arrest: his refusal to subordinate Somali resistance to foreign command.
Somalia deserves better than recycled intelligence myths masquerading as history.

————
WAPMEN — Warsame Policy & Media Network
Critical analysis, fearless rebuttals, and historical accountability.

The Israeli government’s recognition of Somaliland is not merely a diplomatic shock; it is a glaring symptom of chronic dysfunction at the heart of Somalia’s federal government in Villa Somalia. States do not fragment solely because of external conspiracies. They disintegrate when the governing center loses its legitimacy, competence, and authority, yet continues to issue commands as if its power were unchallenged.

For years, Mogadishu has issued proclamations it lacks the capacity to enforce. This “paper sovereignty” is dangerously exposed when a federal center, failing to secure even the wider vicinity of the capital, attempts to rule like a unitary command post. This contradiction invites defiance, accelerates the isolation of regions, and creates a vacuum that foreign powers are all too eager to fill. That door has now been kicked open.

Decrees Without Capacity Breed Fragmentation
A government that does not fully control its capital cannot credibly dictate the political destiny of distant regions. Yet Villa Somalia persists in a paradox: employing rhetoric of maximum centralization while possessing minimum state capacity. The result is a predictable spiral: regions hedge their bets, local elites seek external guarantors, and diplomacy becomes a transactional free-for-all.

Thus, the Israeli move is not because Somaliland discovered a magic key to recognition, but because Somalia’s federal center has neglected the hard, consensus-based work of unity. Instead of fostering negotiation, constitutional restraint, and genuine power-sharing, it has pursued unilateralism. Key Federal Member States like Puntland and Jubaland have suspended cooperation with Mogadishu over disputes about the 2026 electoral process, with some opposition groups forming a parallel “Council for the Future of Somalia”.

Security Failure and Political Overreach
The government’s fragility is most stark in the security sector. Despite an initial offensive, al-Shabaab has resurged, recapturing territory in Middle Shabelle and demonstrating the ability to launch high-profile attacks in Mogadishu, including a recent attempt on the president’s convoy. Meanwhile, the fight against the Islamic State in Somalia (ISS) in Puntland is being waged primarily by regional forces with little support from the federal government.

This security crisis unfolds alongside a political power grab. The government’s unilateral push for a “one person, one vote” model for the 2026 elections—an ideal most agree is currently unfeasible—is widely seen as a maneuver to concentrate power and extend its mandate. By unilaterally changing electoral laws and packing commissions with loyalists, Villa Somalia is dismantling the fragile federal settlement, not defending it.

The Open Market of Influence
Somalia’s internal incoherence has turned the country into an open market for foreign influence, where global actors bargain directly with sub-state authorities. The list is long: Israel, Turkey, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Gulf states all play their parts. This does not happen in a vacuum. It happens when the center cannot bind the periphery to a shared national project.

The international reaction to Israel’s move is telling. While it was celebrated in parts of Somaliland, it triggered widespread protests across Somalia and near-universal diplomatic condemnation. The African Union, Arab League, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and regional bloc IGAD all reaffirmed support for Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. This global stance highlights that the problem is not a lack of external support for Somali unity, but internal actions that erode it.

Has Villa Somalia Learned Anything?
That is the most damning question. The silence is an answer. There has been no fundamental reckoning, no admission that sovereignty cannot be enforced by press releases. Instead, we hear more orders and denunciations while the structural rot deepens. The government is now poised to assume the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council in January 2026—a symbolic victory that will only magnify its domestic contradictions on a global stage.

If Villa Somalia continues to confuse command with consent, Somalia will not merely face recognition gambits; it will face managed disintegration. The path back requires an urgent return to consensus: halting unilateral constitutional changes, agreeing on a feasible and inclusive electoral model for 2026, and rebuilding cooperative security frameworks with the Federal Member States.

WAPMEN’s bottom line:
You cannot shout unity from a palace you cannot project authority from. You cannot defend sovereignty while hollowing out federal trust. And you cannot stop foreign exploitation without first fixing the broken politics at the center. Until Villa Somalia learns this, every new “diplomatic shock” will be less a surprise and more an indictment.

The recognition of Somaliland by Israel is not a diplomatic breakthrough; it is a perilous trap. In a desperate bid to end three decades of international isolation, the leadership in Hargeisa has shaken hands with a partner that is itself increasingly isolated, morally compromised, and engaged in multiple regional wars. Far from unlocking a path to global acceptance, this move has triggered a unified wall of international condemnation, entangled Somaliland in the geopolitics of the Middle East, and exposed it to severe and unforeseen security and political risks.

A Chorus of Condemnation, Not a Bandwagon of Recognition

Contrary to Somaliland’s hopes, Israel’s move has not sparked a wave of followers. Instead, it has provoked a near-universal diplomatic backlash that has reinforced Somaliland’s isolation.

Somalia’s government, calling the recognition a “naked invasion” and an “existential threat,” has declared it null and void, vowing to pursue all diplomatic and legal avenues in response.

The response from regional and international bodies has been unequivocal:

· The African Union (AU) firmly rejected the move, warning it “sets a dangerous precedent” for peace and stability across the continent and undermines the sacrosanct principle of colonial-era borders.
· A bloc of 21 Arab and African nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation issued a joint statement condemning the recognition as a grave violation of international law.
· Key regional powers, including Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Djibouti, have all stood with Somalia, rejecting the agreement.
· The European Union and the United States have both publicly reaffirmed their commitment to Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. U.S. President Donald Trump, when asked, simply replied “no” to recognizing Somaliland.

This unified opposition makes it clear: Israel is not a key that unlocks doors; it is a pariah whose endorsement only bolsters the resolve of the international community to keep those doors shut.

Strategic Mirage: An Invisible and Vulnerable Partner

Israel’s primary strategic interest is blatantly transparent: to secure a foothold on the Red Sea opposite Yemen to counter the Houthi movement. However, this very objective guarantees that Israel cannot be the robust, visible partner Somaliland needs.

· A Covert, Not Open, Presence: Given the ferocity of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Houthis—which has included Israeli airstrikes leveling the Sana’a airport and Houthi drones striking deep inside Israel—any open Israeli presence in Hargeisa would instantly make Somaliland a direct target. Therefore, any Israeli involvement will necessarily be covert, intelligence-focused, and militarily limited, offering Somaliland little tangible security benefit while absorbing massive risk.
· The Houthi Veto: The Houthis have proven to be a resilient, strategically smart adversary that has withstood a years-long military campaign and continues to challenge Israel directly. They have explicitly stated they will not allow Israelis to function in the region. Their demonstrated capacity to strike distant targets means this is not an idle threat but a severe and imminent danger to Somaliland’s stability.

The Toxic Motivations Behind Netanyahu’s “Gift”

Somaliland’s recognition is less about Hargeisa and more about the desperate political calculations of Benjamin Netanyahu.

· A Diversion from Isolation: Netanyahu, besieged by war crimes allegations and unprecedented international isolation, is using this move as a low-cost diplomatic spectacle to create an illusion of statesmanship and break out of his pariah status.
· A Geopolitical Provocation: The move is a direct challenge to Turkey, a major supporter of Somalia’s government, and part of Israel’s broader rivalry for influence in the Horn of Africa and Red Sea.
· Tainted by the “Displacement” Shadow: Most alarmingly, analysts note that the recognition is entangled with discussions about the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. This associates Somaliland’s sovereign aspirations with a project of demographic erasure, poisoning its moral standing and aligning it with what much of the world views as a ongoing atrocity.

A Path to Peril, Not Prosperity

For Somaliland, the consequences of this gamble are dire and multifaceted:

1. Deepened Regional Hostility: The move has turned diplomatic frost into active hostility from its most important neighbors and the entire African bloc.
2. Fuel for Internal Fracture: It risks inflaming internal tensions within Somaliland’s own contested borders, particularly in the eastern regions like Sool and Sanaag, where allegiance to Somalia remains strong.
3. Security as a Target: Somaliland has volunteered to become a front in the Israel-Houthi-Iran conflict, jeopardizing its hard-won relative stability.
4. Symbolic, Not Material, Gain: With major powers refusing to follow Israel’s lead, Somaliland remains locked out of international financial institutions and meaningful multilateral aid.

Somaliland’s leaders have bet their people’s future on a partner who is using them as a pawn. True sovereignty and lasting recognition cannot be built on a foundation of geopolitical cynicism, widespread condemnation, and imminent security threats. The only viable path forward for Somaliland’s aspirations is not through a desperate pact with a pariah, but through good-faith, African-led dialogue with Mogadishu, supported by the international community that has just resoundingly rejected this dangerous shortcut. To ignore this reality is to court disaster.

Beware the Deluge of “Modern” City Transport — The Fekon & Bajaj Time Bomb (and the Case for an Import Ban)
They sold it to us as modernization. What we got instead is urban mayhem—and nowhere is the danger clearer than in Garowe.
Garowe is being quietly overrun by two machines that thrive in regulatory darkness: Fekon (two-wheeler motorcycles) and Bajaj (motorized rickshaws). Left unchecked, they will drown the city—physically, socially, and institutionally.

The Fekon–Bajaj Flood
They multiply faster than the city can breathe. They swarm intersections, mount sidewalks, choke drainage lines, and turn residential lanes into racetracks. Built for limited utility, they now operate everywhere—markets, schools, hospitals—without routes, inspections, or accountability.

This is not mobility. It is a mechanized anarchy.
When Informality Becomes a Weapon
Untrained drivers under daily cash pressure speed through crowds and ignore crossings. Accidents rise. Tempers flare. The victims are predictable: children, elders, women, and street vendors. The beneficiaries are fewer: importers, platform owners, and a shadow economy feeding on state absence.

A City on the Brink
Garowe’s roads were never designed for this volume or mix. Add ride-hailing cars, delivery bikes, minibuses, and scooters to the Fekon–Bajaj surge and you get gridlock with teeth—noise, fumes, near-misses, delayed emergencies, and eroding trust.
Every horn blast is a warning siren.

The Hard Decision We Must Face: Ban the Imports—Now
Regulation alone will not catch up with the flood. Puntland State must consider an immediate ban on the import of Fekon and Bajaj into urban centres—starting with Garowe—until a credible framework exists.
This is not anti-livelihood; it is pro-city survival.
What that means in practice:
Immediate moratorium on new Fekon and Bajaj imports into urban centres of Puntland State of Somalia.
Cap and freeze existing numbers; no new registrations.
Mandatory registration, licensing, and visible IDs for all existing units.
Designated routes and exclusion zones (schools, hospitals, pedestrian cores).
Safety standards (speed governors, lights, brakes, passenger limits).
Driver training and strict enforcement—no license, no road.
Public transport investment to absorb demand humanely and at scale.

Progress Is Discipline
Modernity is not how many engines you unleash; it is how well you govern movement. If Fekon and Bajaj are not halted and regulated today, they will rule Garowe tomorrow—by default, by force, by chaos.
This is a final notice. Pause the imports. Regulate what exists. Reclaim the streets. Or prepare to watch a promising capital choke on its own traffic.

WAPMEN warns today so we don’t mourn tomorrow.

There is a fundamental rule of statecraft: a nation that does not control its territory cannot control its destiny. For years, Somalia’s profound security challenges and fragmented governance have made its sovereignty negotiable in the eyes of rival foreign powers. Today, the most severe bill for this vulnerability has arrived.

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland as an independent state is not merely a provocative diplomatic act. It is the direct outcome of a long-term erosion of Somali sovereignty—an erosion accelerated by internal divisions and exploited by external actors pursuing their own strategic contests on Somali soil.

Sovereignty Hollowed Out: A Stage for Regional Rivalries
Somalia’s fragility has transformed it into an arena for regional and global competitions.The search results confirm a pattern of external interference:

1.  Gulf Rivalries: The Horn of Africa has become a theater for a “great game”-style contest, primarily between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with their competition playing out in Somalia’s political and economic spheres.
2.  Neighborhood Pressures: Ethiopia’s quest for sea access led to a controversial memorandum of understanding with Somaliland in early 2024, which Somalia condemned as a violation of its sovereignty. Turkey has positioned itself as a key mediator, brokering the Ankara Declaration between Ethiopia and Somalia in December 2024.
3.  Global Interests: Beyond the Gulf, countries including Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey have vested interests, often aligned in competing blocs.

The claim that Somalia “invited them all in at once” is an oversimplification. Engagement with these powers is often a necessity for a government grappling with an existential threat from al-Shabaab, which launched a major offensive in 2025. However, the consequence is a perilous dependency. As one analysis notes, a nation cannot reclaim sovereignty while it depends on foreign forces for its core security.

The Recognition Crisis: Symptom of a Larger Disease
Israel’s move is a stark exploitation of this fractured landscape.Key facts from the search results include:

1.  Israel framed its recognition as being “in the spirit of the Abraham Accords”.
2.  The international reaction was swift: Somalia rejected it as an “unlawful action”, and a broad coalition—including Egypt, Turkey, Djibouti, the African Union, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—reaffirmed support for Somalia’s unity and territorial integrity.
3.  Analysts warn this sets a dangerous precedent, making state recognition “transactional rather than principled” and risks emboldening other secessionist forces within Somalia’s federal system.

This crisis is not solely about Israel or Somaliland. It is about the cumulative effect of Somalia’s compromised sovereignty. A country where the federal government struggles to project authority, where federal states like Puntland and Jubaland have contested its authority, and where foreign partners fund, train, and build bases, inevitably finds its unity questioned in foreign capitals.

The Reckoning and the Path Forward
The battlefield in Somalia is multi-layered:against al-Shabaab, within its own political structures, and now against diplomatic maneuvers that threaten its map. The solution cannot be a wholesale rejection of foreign partnerships, which are currently essential for security. It must be the rigorous and unified pursuit of a coherent national strategy.

Somalia must anchor its foreign policy in unwavering national consensus. This means clearly defining its red lines, coordinating all external engagements through a single sovereign framework, and relentlessly building its own security institutions to reduce asymmetric dependencies. The alternative is to accept a permanent future as a geopolitical arena, where its borders and destiny are debated by others.

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WAPMEN Editorial

The silence is deafening—and it is dangerous.

On December 26, 2025, Israel became the first country to formally recognize the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, crossing a red line that international law draws in bold ink: respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. This is not diplomacy; it is provocation. It is not neutrality; it is a direct intervention. The Federal Government of Somalia immediately and rightly condemned this as an “unlawful step” and a “deliberate attack” on its sovereignty.

This moment demands clarity and courage, especially from Puntland State leaders.

A Naked Violation, Plain and Simple
Recognition of a breakaway territory without the consent of the parent state is a flagrant violation of core international principles.It contravenes the United Nations Charter and directly opposes the African Union’s foundational commitment—reaffirmed in its swift rejection of this move—to the “sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its Member States.” Furthermore, it spurns the clear stance of regional partners; a coalition of Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan, has jointly condemned the act as a violation of international law and a threat to regional stability.

Israel’s move disregards these norms with alarming ease, treating Somalia’s fragility as an opportunity. The message is chilling: when a state is weak, its borders become negotiable. That logic, if normalized, threatens every post-colonial state whose cohesion was forged through painful compromise and collective will.

Puntland Must Speak—Now
Puntland’s leaders cannot afford strategic ambiguity or tactical silence.This is not a Mogadishu-versus-Garowe quarrel; it is a Somalia-versus-fragmentation moment. Puntland’s historical claim to responsible federalism—grounded in consent, constitutionalism, and unity—demands a public, unequivocal condemnation of Israel’s action, aligning with the national position and the unified African and Arab stance.

Silence will be read as acquiescence. Hesitation will be interpreted as calculation. Both would be fatal to Puntland’s credibility and Somalia’s collective defense.

Federalism Is Not a License to Disintegrate
Somali federal member states exist to strengthen the republic,not to outsource sovereignty or shop for recognition abroad. Any foreign state that selectively recognizes Somali regions is not supporting self-determination—it is engineering partition. That path leads to Balkanization, proxy competition, and perpetual instability.

The response, as seen in the unified international condemnations, must be national and unequivocal: federal institutions, member states, elders, civil society, and the diaspora must speak with one voice.

The Call to Action
Somalia must continue to formally challenge this provocation through all diplomatic channels,regional bodies, and international forums, building upon the strong support already shown by the AU and Arab League. Federal member states must close ranks. Puntland must now lead by example—by speaking up, condemning the violation, and reaffirming Somalia’s territorial integrity without equivocation.

This is a test of sovereignty. It is also a test of leadership.

History will not be kind to those who watched their country carved up in silence.

—

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The outrage is loud. Social media is aflame. Statements are flying. Somalia’s political class has rediscovered its vocal cords—all because Israel has become the first United Nations member state to grant full diplomatic recognition to Somaliland.

Yes, the outrage is justified. This act is a serious assault on Somalia’s sovereignty and sets a dangerous precedent. It has rightly drawn condemnation from the international community, including from members of the League of Arab States who have rejected the move as a violation of international law. Saudi Arabia explicitly stated it contradicts international law and entrenches unilateral measures, while Egypt coordinated with regional partners to condemn it.

But let us be honest—brutally honest, as WAPMEN must be.

Israel did not invent Somalia’s dismemberment. It is merely the latest external actor to step into a vacuum of sovereignty that has been meticulously carved out by Somalis themselves over decades. The precedent was not set in Tel Aviv; it was nurtured in Villa Somalia and in regional presidential palaces.

Selective Outrage Is a Moral and Strategic Failure

Browse the internet and you will find wall-to-wall condemnation of Israel. Turkey, a close ally of Somalia, has enlisted firmly on Mogadishu’s side, calling Israel’s recognition “overt interference in Somalia’s domestic affairs”. Yet one question is conspicuously absent: What made Somalia so vulnerable to this?

The truth is, Israel’s move, while unprecedented in its formality, follows a well-worn path of external engagements with Somalia’s breakaway regions. Somaliland has for years cultivated informal ties with entities like Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates. Just months ago, Ethiopia pursued a memorandum of understanding that would have granted it sea access in exchange for recognizing Somaliland, backing down only under intense diplomatic pressure.

Why has no sustained outrage been directed at the domestic political vandalism that hollowed out Somali sovereignty long before any foreign power decided to formalize its fracture?

Somalia Was Not Betrayed Overnight — It Was Systematically Undermined

Somalia did not wake up to find itself dismembered. It has been methodically weakened by a ruling elite whose political culture has been identified by analysts as the primary impediment to state resurrection—a culture aloof from society and rooted in personal gain over national interest.

Federalism, conceived as a mechanism for shared governance, has been converted into a tool for fragmentation. We do not need to speak in abstractions.

· Puntland, following controversial constitutional amendments in March 2024, declared it would operate as an independent government. It later signed a separate cooperation agreement with Ethiopia, directly counter to Mogadishu’s authority.
· Jubaland, in November 2024, suspended all cooperation with the federal government after an arrest warrant was issued for its president. This political dispute has escalated into armed clashes between federal and regional forces.

These are not the actions of stakeholders in a collective republic. They are the hallmarks of quasi-states conducting parallel foreign and security policies. Once you normalize the defiance of the central state, do not act shocked when foreign capitals normalize the defiance of Somalia.

Recognition Is Not the Disease — It Is the Symptom

Israel’s recognition is a stark diagnosis of a profound sickness within.

A country whose leaders wage political war against their own federal units, whose center and regions consistently violate the provisional constitution for short-term advantage, and whose political class trades long-term sovereignty for immediate survival cannot credibly demand the world respect borders it fails to enforce itself.

Sovereignty is not declared; it is enforced—politically, legally, and institutionally. Somalia stopped enforcing it long ago.

The Silence on Leadership Failure Is Complicity

It is easy to point fingers outward. It is harder—but necessary—to confront the internal wreckage.

The same political class now crying foul over Israel—and now benefiting from the diplomatic solidarity of allies like Turkey and Arab states—has for years cheered constitutional violations when it suited them, applauded federal overreach to weaken rivals, and justified fragmentation when it brought leverage. They stayed silent as the very idea of a single Somali political will was eroded.

They planted the wind. Now they reap the whirlwind.

WAPMEN’s  Uncomfortable Conclusion

Israel’s move is dangerous and must be challenged with every diplomatic and legal tool available. The condemnations from Ankara, Riyadh, Cairo, and beyond are a necessary and welcome defense of international principles.

But Somalia’s greatest enemy is not in Tel Aviv. It is in the culture of impunity that treats the state as a disposable instrument rather than a collective trust. It is in the leadership failure that remains, as scholars have documented, the central obstacle to the state’s resuscitation.

Until Somali leaders are held accountable for dismantling their own country’s sovereignty—brick by brick, agreement by unauthorized agreement—foreign powers will continue to do what opportunists always do: step into the ruins and claim what the owners abandoned.

WAPMEN does not trade in illusions. We deal in causes, not symptoms.

And the cause of Somalia’s vulnerability is Somali political irresponsibility—first, foremost, and ongoing.

Israel’s formal recognition of Somaliland on December 26, 2025, is not a bolt from the blue. It is an invoice arriving—late, stamped, and payable—after years of Somalia behaving like a state that wants the title deed to unity but refuses to maintain the house of governance.

In geopolitical terms, recognition is rarely a moral reward; it is a transaction. Somaliland did not suddenly become “more real” today. It simply became more useful to an external actor. And Somalia, by becoming ungovernable, made the transaction cheaper.

What did we expect after making the country ungovernable? We expected exactly this.

When a federal center treats the Provisional Constitution as a suggestion box—opening the door to corruption, land grabs, and unconstitutional power plays—it does not “strengthen the state.” It advertises the state as for sale. The recent constitutional changes, which Puntland refused to recognize and which led it to withdraw from the federal system, are a prime example. Mogadishu was accused of “threatening national unity” by concentrating power.

This trajectory was not state-building; it was state-unbuilding.

For years, WDM has warned that Somalia’s federal experiment “has now entered its terminal crisis stage,” where relations between the center and member states have decayed into “mutual suspicion, coercion, and political trench warfare”—fertile ground for fragmentation. We explicitly framed Somalia’s future as a fork in the road: “A negotiated consensus” or “A dangerous fragmentation—where Mogadishu’s unilateralism spawns rival governments, contested institutions, and international confusion”.

We warned that the Garowe–Mogadishu confrontation was not political theatre, but a collision course that could breed “parallel governments (Garowe vs Mogadishu model)” and invite increased foreign meddling. We doubled down that delay is a strategy of cowards: “Somalia always pays more when it waits. More instability. More fragmentation. More foreign interference”.

So no—this is not “Somaliland winning.” This is Somalia defaulting.

The weaponization of the center normalized fragmentation.

The pattern of the federal center treating member states as targets, not partners, hardened in recent years. WDM documented that under the regimes of Farmaajo and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the National Consultative Council (NCC) was transformed from a dialogue platform into “a forum to pressure Puntland and Jubaland” and “a tool to override federalism”. Once a state normalizes internal war-by-politics, it should not act surprised when outsiders start treating its map as negotiable.

“Other countries to follow?” Yes—because the center taught them how.

Reuters frames Israel’s move as a “first”. That word is the danger. Once one country crosses the line, the next ones will not need to argue the entire case again. They will only need to ask: What do we gain? What does Mogadishu offer? What can Hargeisa deliver?

Somalia’s federal center, by violating the spirit and procedures of its own constitution, has made itself a weak negotiator—sometimes not even a negotiator at all, just a loud protester outside the room. This is the strategic humiliation: a state that cannot keep its own federation intact will struggle to keep its sovereignty arguments persuasive abroad.

How long have we been warning? Long enough that the warnings now look like minutes of a meeting Somalia refused to attend.

When WDM titles an essay “Garowe vs. Mogadishu: The Looming Political Collision Course” and explicitly lists fragmentation as a probable outcome, that is not commentary—it is an alarm. When WDM publishes “Somalia’s Federalism in Paralysis” and describes terminal decay, that is not pessimism—it is diagnosis. When WDM says Somalia must choose confederation or fragmentation, that is not provocation—it is an exit map from a burning building.

The Bottom Line

Somaliland’s recognition is not merely Somaliland’s diplomacy. It is Somalia’s self-inflicted emptiness being filled by other people’s interests.

If Mogadishu wants to stop the dominoes, it must stop behaving like a landlord who evicts tenants (member states), then screams “unity!” from the rooftop of a collapsing building.

Somalia’s unity cannot be enforced by decree, purchased by corruption, or performed on television. It must be negotiated, constitutionally, and collectively owned—or it will be internationally auctioned, piece by piece.

By the way, how much do you think the recent Somalia’s E-VISA controversy has contributed to this balkanization of Somalia? Have your say.

Citations

1. Garowe vs. Mogadishu: The Looming Political Collision Course. WDM Editorial, Nov 3 2025.
2. Somalia’s Federalism in Paralysis. WDM White Paper, Nov 27 2025.
3. The Price of Delay: Somalia’s Leaders Are Choosing Chaos Over Consensus. WDM Editorial, Dec 23 2025.
4. Somalia accused of ‘threatening national unity’ with new constitution. The Guardian, Apr 5 2024.
5. Israel becomes first country to formally recognise Somaliland as independent state. Reuters, Dec 26 2025.

A Satire by Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN)

In Somalia, there is a city living two lives—one of soaring ambition, the other of quiet desperation. Its name is Galkayo.

By day, Galkayo stands as a testament to Somali audacity. Its children, scattered across continents, have accomplished what governments draft in proposals and donors debate in conferences. They carved a deep-sea port from the rocky shores of Gara’ad—opening it in 2022—no permissions asked, no international aid requested. Now, they are rallying behind the Abdullahi Yusuf International Airport, with the business community reportedly proposing a $20 million investment—a bold statement that this city will not be left on the ground.

This is the Galkayo of cranes and wire transfers, of blueprints and belief. A city that proclaims: If the state will not come to us, we will become the state.

But when the sun sets, another Galkayo wakes.

This Galkayo is not measured in milestones, but in escapes. Its professionals, elders, and entrepreneurs slip away—sometimes with suitcases, often with only the clothes they wear—not because of drought or unemployment, but because of the silent, persistent terror of clan vendettas, the brutal cycle of “Aano” revenge killings that have claimed dozens of elite residents since 2022. Here, survival is the nightly agenda.

In this Galkayo, trash mounds rise like monuments to neglect. Rainwater, when it comes, has no plan but to flood—streets, homes, and hope alike—a direct result of a collapsed drainage system and municipal paralysis. Drainage exists in speeches. Public health is a rumor. The city decays without spectacle, eroding under apathy.

So we ask: What city builds an airport it cannot safely reach, where the key road link to Harfo is described as ‘one of the worst’ and remains stalled by political disputes? What logic builds a port to the world while its own neighborhoods drown in waste and fear?

This is not irony—it is civic schizophrenia.

Galkayo has perfected exporting dreams while importing disorder. Its diaspora funds monuments to tomorrow, while its politicians treat the city like a temporary settlement. Clan justice operates unchallenged—swifter than courts, deadlier than law, and more respected than any institution—in a documented vacuum of justice where promises of new police forces remain unfulfilled.

We speak always of “community resilience,” but never ask why resilience must do the work of government. We celebrate self-reliance, yet ignore why a city that can fund multimillion-dollar projects cannot broker a basic peace among its own or even collect the garbage.

The disconnect is no longer hidden—it is glaring, grotesque.

A city cannot be both a gateway to the world and a hostage to its own streets. You cannot court international flights while your citizens book one-way tickets out of fear. You cannot dredge an ocean for ships but not your own roads for rain. You cannot champion development while dismissing revenge killings as “tribal affairs.”

Galkayo must choose.

Will it be the city that builds—or the city that buries?

Because runways and ports do not make a home. Safety does. Dignity does. Law does. Without these, every poured foundation, every newly paved tarmac, will stand not as a symbol of progress—but as a tombstone for what Galkayo could have been.

A city reaching for the skies, yet unable to walk its own streets at night.

—

Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN).

Why Centralization, Term Extensions, and Constitutional Shortcuts Remain a Clear and Present Danger

WAPMEN EDITORIAL

Somalia’s problem is no longer confusion. It is amnesia.
The country keeps relearning the same lesson—at enormous cost—while its leaders insist on repeating the same behavior under new names, new slogans, and new excuses. Administrations change, but the instinct to centralize power, bypass consensus, and manipulate constitutional processes remains stubbornly intact.
Today, Somalia is led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Hamse Abdi Barre. The faces are different from 2019. The danger is not.
Federalism Was a Peace Settlement — Not a Courtesy to the Center
Somalia’s federal system was not adopted because it was fashionable. It was adopted because unchecked central authority destroyed the Somali state.
Federalism was the compromise that made reunification possible after civil war. It was the minimum condition for coexistence among mistrustful communities emerging from collapse. It was, in effect, a peace settlement disguised as a governance model.
Any federal leadership—past or present—that treats federalism as temporary, cosmetic, or negotiable by executive fiat is tampering with the foundations of the republic.
The Constitutional Review Trap: Same Playbook, New Actors
A constitution derives legitimacy from process, not presidential announcements.
Yet Somalia continues to flirt with the same dangerous pattern:
Closed-door constitutional engineering
Minimal public participation
Marginal consultation with Federal Member States
Political timing designed to shape electoral outcomes
This is not reform. It is constitutional ambush.
Whether attempted under previous administrations or revived under the current one, the result is identical: mistrust, resistance, and institutional paralysis.
A constitution rushed without consensus does not unify the country—it fractures it.
Term Extension Is Not Stability — It Is Deferred Crisis
Somalia’s leaders often justify mandate extensions in the name of stability. This is a fiction.
Term extension does not buy time; it burns legitimacy. It replaces consent with coercion and turns elections from solutions into triggers. The 2021 crisis proved this beyond debate.
Any attempt—explicit or disguised—to normalize term extensions under President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s administration would not be a technical adjustment. It would be a deliberate political gamble against Somalia’s fragile equilibrium.
Why Confederalism Refuses to Go Away
Confederalism did not enter Somali political discourse because Puntland or other Federal Member States woke up one day craving fragmentation.
It emerged because:
Federalism was violated, not respected
Power-sharing was undermined, not honored
Federal Member States were treated as administrative dependencies
When the center abandons partnership, the periphery explores protection.
Confederalism is not rebellion. It is a warning signal—a constitutional distress flare fired by communities that feel excluded from national decision-making.
Ignore it, and the union weakens further.
Puntland’s Position: Constitutional Self-Defense, Not Defiance
The stance of Puntland State of Somalia has consistently been mischaracterized as obstructionist.
In reality, Puntland has been defending:
The Provisional Federal Constitution
The principle of shared sovereignty
The idea that Somalia is a collective ownership state, not a Villa Somalia possession
Federalism survives only when limits are respected. When the center overreaches, resistance is not insubordination—it is constitutional self-defense.
The Choice Before the Current Leadership
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Hamse Abdi Barre face a clear choice:
Consensus or coercion
Dialogue or decrees
Legitimacy or longevity
Somalia does not need faster constitutions, stronger executives, or clever political shortcuts. It needs slower politics grounded in consent, inclusion, and restraint.
The cheapest option is always to do the right thing early. Somalia’s tragedy is that its leaders keep choosing the most expensive alternative—doing the wrong thing until the country pushes back.
Final Word
Federalism was meant to heal Somalia, not hollow it out.
Constitutions are meant to unite, not ambush.
Elections are meant to confer legitimacy, not postpone accountability.
Those who ignore these truths should not pretend surprise when the system resists.
Somalia has learned this lesson before.
The scandal is that it must keep learning it again.

WAPMEN — Warsame Policy & Media Network
Fearless analysis. Institutional memory. No amnesia.

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Dear WAPMEN Readers,

As Christmas Eve arrives and many among our readers gather tonight to celebrate the birth of Christ, we at the Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN) extend our warmest wishes to you and your families.
May this Christmas bring peace to your homes, light to your hearts, and renewed hope for a world too often weighed down by division, injustice, and conflict. In times such as these, moments of faith, reflection, and compassion remind us of our shared humanity and common destiny.

As we look ahead to the New Year, we reaffirm our commitment to fearless, independent analysis, principled journalism, and honest conversations about governance, justice, and the future of our societies—especially in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Your readership, engagement, and support continue to inspire and sustain this mission.

From all of us at WAPMEN, we wish you a Blessed Christmas and a Peaceful, Prosperous New Year filled with clarity, courage, and hope.

With respect and gratitude,
Ismail H. Warsame
Founder & Editor
Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN).

WDM EDITORIAL

Somali political stakeholders have a choice—make history cheaply today, or pay an unbearable price tomorrow. The window for a dignified, lawful, and consensual transition is closing fast. And once it shuts, no amount of posturing, ultimatums, or hastily assembled “interim authorities” will restore legitimacy to a system already wobbling on its last legs.
Let us be blunt.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s tenure in Villa Somalia is nearing its political end.
The emergence of Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaaliya and its ultimatum to form an alternative federal administration is not a cause—it is a symptom. It reflects a growing consensus across Somalia’s fractured political landscape that the center has failed to convene, reconcile, and govern inclusively. But here is the danger: if this process drifts into a rushed, reactive interim arrangement after Villa Somalia loses all legitimacy, Somalia will not be fixing a crisis—it will be manufacturing a bigger one.
When Everyone Loses Legitimacy, No One Can Negotiate
Here is the hard truth policymakers prefer to avoid:
Once Hassan Sheikh Mohamud loses legitimacy, he becomes politically irrelevant— unworthy of serious negotiation. But at the same time, any alternative administration born out of haste, exclusion, or political vengeance will suffer the same fate.
That is how Somalia repeatedly ends up with dueling claims of authority, parallel institutions, and endless conferences that solve nothing. Legitimacy is not retroactive. You cannot declare it after the fact. You must build it—carefully, deliberately, and collectively.
The National Congress: Inevitable—But at What Cost?
A national congress to renegotiate consensus is inevitable. The question is not if, but when—and under what conditions.
Do we convene it now, while some institutional credibility remains, and while dialogue is still possible?
Or do we wait until the center collapses politically, the alternatives look improvised, and the country enters another gray zone of contested authority?
History answers this question mercilessly. Somalia always pays more when it waits. More instability. More fragmentation. More foreign interference. More lost years.
Doing the Right Thing Is Always Cheaper—If Done on Time
Consensus-building today is politically uncomfortable—but economically, socially, and strategically cheap. Consensus-building later, after legitimacy evaporates, is prohibitively expensive.
Somalia does not need another brinkmanship experiment. It does not need ultimatums followed by improvisation. It needs sobriety, foresight, and a recognition that no single actor—Villa Somalia included—owns the state.
This is the last call for a negotiated, dignified exit from the current impasse. Delay will not strengthen anyone’s hand. It will only ensure that when the reckoning comes, everyone arrives weakened—and the nation pays the bill.
The clock is ticking.
The cost is rising.
And history, as always, will not forgive those who chose delay over duty.
——–

Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN).
Fearless analysis. Uncomfortable truths. No delay, no illusions.

WAPMEN Editorial | Revisited with the Kismayo Communiqué Context

Somalia is no longer merely staring at an avoidable political crisis — it has now named it, anticipated it, and formally prepared for it. What was previously dismissed as speculative alarmism has been elevated into a written contingency by the Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaaliya, convened in Kismayo recently.

The federal project is no longer eroding quietly. It is being openly challenged by its own stakeholders — not through bullets or barricades, but through pre-emptive political architecture.

The Kismayo Line in the Sand
The most consequential sentence in the Kismayo Communiqué is not rhetorical — it is procedural and revolutionary:
In the event the Federal President refuses to negotiate a consensual way forward before the end of his mandate on May 15, the Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaaliya shall pursue an alternative national political arrangement.
Stripped of diplomatic language, this is a formal notice of parallel authority.
For the first time since the end of the Transitional Federal Government era, Somali political actors have collectively stated — in advance — that legitimacy will not be inherited by default. If the incumbent president overstays, stonewalls, or manufactures a transition without consent, the response will not be protest alone. It will be institutional duplication.

From Hypothesis to Doctrine
This declaration fundamentally reframes the earlier Garowe–Mogadishu standoff.
What was once whispered — rival conferences, dual parliaments, competing claims — is now codified as a contingency plan. The Communiqué transforms Garowe’s posture from defensive resistance into conditional statecraft.
Garowe is no longer merely warning against federal overreach; it is preparing to outlive it.

Mogadishu, meanwhile, is betting that inertia, international silence, and the myth of inevitability will carry it past May 15 without consequence.
That bet may prove fatal.
Parallel Government Is Not a Threat — It Is an Admission of Failure
Let us be clear: the emergence of a parallel political track is not a coup against federalism. It is an indictment of its abuse.
When negotiation is refused, mandates are violated, and elections are personalized, legitimacy does not evaporate — it relocates.

Somalia has lived this movie before:
1991: Power claimed without consent → state collapse
2000–2004: Competing authorities → transitional purgatory
2025–2026 (looming): Manufactured continuity → institutional bifurcation
The Kismayo Communiqué is a warning shot meant to prevent the repeat — but it also acknowledges readiness for it.

Garowe’s Calculation vs. Mogadishu’s Hubris
Garowe’s strategy is grounded in one premise: sovereignty is collective, not presidential. The federal center is a trustee, not an owner.
Mogadishu’s strategy rests on a different assumption: if you control the capital, you control the country.
That assumption has failed Somalia repeatedly.
Federal Member States are no longer passive recipients of directives. They are co-authors of the state. The public is no longer illiterate. And the international community, however fatigued, cannot indefinitely recognize an authority whose mandate has expired by its own constitution.

The Fork Has Been Marked
The question is no longer whether Somalia could split into parallel legitimacies.
The question is who forced it there.
A negotiated settlement before May 15 keeps Somalia whole.
A unilateral extension after May 15 triggers the very outcome Villa Somalia claims to fear.
The Kismayo Communiqué did not invent this danger.
It simply named the consequence.
Somalia now stands warned — in writing.

—————
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Why Un-negotiated Separation and Federal Over-Reach Are Two Sides of the Same Failure

When Abdirahman Faroole stood before the delegates at the Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaaliya in Kismayo recently, he did more than recall a grievance. He punctured a national illusion. The separation between Puntland State of Somalia and SSC-Khaatumo was never negotiated, never constitutionalized, and never settled. It was improvised—then normalized by fatigue. What Faroole called federal over-reach is not an episode; it is the predictable outcome of Somalia’s habit of substituting delay for decision.

This debate is often miscast as a territorial quarrel or a clash of personalities. That framing is convenient—and wrong. The real conflict is about legitimacy without renewal. Puntland’s authority in SSC areas did not evaporate overnight; it eroded through representation without influence, inclusion without voice, and loyalty assumed rather than renewed. When legitimacy thins, force tempts. When force appears, trust collapses. That spiral explains far more than slogans ever will.
SSC-Khaatumo’s emergence, in turn, is not an act of political vandalism. It is an audit. Communities do not abandon frameworks that protect them; they exit arrangements that ignore them. The problem is not that SSC asserted itself; it is that Somalia allowed assertion to replace negotiation. Un-negotiated separation hardens positions, militarizes misunderstandings, and leaves every party claiming legality while delivering instability.

Enter the federal center—and here the reckoning sharpens. The Federal Government of Somalia has perfected a dangerous craft: symbolic authority without operational responsibility. From Mogadishu come flags, declarations, and endorsements. What does not reliably come are enforceable guarantees—revenue sharing that works, dispute resolution that binds, security coordination that endures. This is not federal leadership; it is performative sovereignty. When the center inserts itself into unresolved regional disputes without convening binding talks, it does not arbitrate—it aggravates.

To pretend this is a clan war is to misdiagnose a constitutional disease. Puntland was founded as a multi-clan federal bulwark when Somalia was dissolving into armed particularism. That achievement is real—and so is its expiration date if not renewed. Institutions that are not refreshed invite older logics to return. When federal mechanisms weaken, clan arithmetic fills the vacuum. Blaming identity for institutional decay is how governance failures metastasize into existential feuds.

The seductive argument—that SSC should bypass Puntland and align directly with the center—offers shortcuts where only hard roads exist. Somalia’s tragedy is not a lack of symbols; it is a shortage of settlement. Direct alignment would not end ambiguity; it would relocate it. Stability is not achieved by skipping layers of federalism; it is achieved by negotiated inclusion—clear competencies, shared revenues, credible arbitration, and timelines that bind.

Calls for Puntland’s withdrawal from SSC miss the point entirely. Withdrawal without settlement produces vacuums, not peace. Authority cannot be abandoned; it must be transformed. Equally, SSC’s legitimacy cannot be wished away; it must be recognized, negotiated, and constitutionalized. Anything less is theater with consequences.
Strip away the rhetoric and the truth is stark: Somalia keeps fighting the same argument because it refuses to finish the same agreement. The Puntland–SSC rupture is a delayed constitutional reckoning over authority, representation, and consent—prolonged by a federal center that prefers applause to arbitration. History is unforgiving to systems that confuse postponement with stability.
Somalia does not suffer from too much federalism or too little unity. It suffers from unfinished bargains masquerading as settled orders. Until the separation is negotiated, the roles clarified, and the guarantees enforced, legitimacy will keep returning—loudly—where it was once neglected quietly.

———-

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Somalia has learned, painfully, that leadership does not end with ballots, speeches, or borrowed legitimacy from foreign podiums. It ends when reality knocks. And reality, as usual, arrives late, uninvited, and unimpressed.

This image—circulating quietly, almost shyly—does not scream victory. It does not promise miracles. It does not declare itself the future. That alone makes it revolutionary.

What it shows is something Somalia has been starved of for decades: the early outline of post-Hassan Sheikh Mohamud politics, beyond May 2026. Not slogans. Not clan arithmetic. Not Villa Somalia theatrics. But faces that suggest influence, continuity, negotiation, and uncomfortable political conversations.

Although not necessarily more qualitative, it carries visible signs of reckoning—a rare political currency in a country exhausted by grand claims and chronic under-delivery.

In Somalia, that is radical.

The End of the Traveling Presidency

For nearly a decade, Somali politics has resembled a departure lounge. Leadership was measured in air miles, hotel conferences, and donor applause. Governance was something to be discussed abroad, not practiced at home. Federalism became a word to be recited, not respected. National reconciliation turned into an annual slogan, dusted off whenever legitimacy dipped.

The post-2026 moment, however, will not tolerate this circus. The country is exhausted. The regions are assertive. The people are watching.

This image hints at figures who understand that Somalia is no longer governed from one compound, one clan narrative, or one donor briefing. It suggests personalities shaped by friction—between federal member states and Mogadishu, between tradition and modern statehood, between unity and forced uniformity.

A New Kind of Political Gravity

What makes this emerging constellation interesting is not perfection—but plurality.

These are not messiahs. They are not strongmen. They are not loud. And that is precisely the point.

They represent something Somalia desperately needs:

Leaders who know federalism is not rebellion

Figures who grasp that reconciliation is not surrender

Personalities who accept that power must circulate—or it explodes

If Hassan Sheikh’s era was defined by central accumulation and political monoculture, the post-2026 phase—if this image is any indication—may finally reintroduce political gravity, where influence is earned, not imposed.

Satire Aside, This Is Serious

Of course, Somalis are trained skeptics. We have seen promising faces before—only to watch them mutate once they taste Villa Somalia tea. We know how quickly “national figures” become “national disappointments.”

But satire must also know when to pause.

This image does not promise salvation. It promises possibility—not excellence, not genius, but a baseline of political honesty long absent from the stage. And in Somalia’s political history, even that is not cheap.

It whispers—quietly—that the next chapter may not be written by one man, one network, or one borrowed script. It suggests that post-Hassan Sheikh Somalia might finally rediscover dialogue over dominance.

The Real Test Ahead

If these emerging figures truly shape the future, their test will be simple and brutal:

Will they respect federal member states as partners, not provinces?

Will they treat reconciliation as a process, not a photo-op?

Will they govern Somalia as a shared republic, not a captured estate?

If they do, May 2026 may not mark just the end of a presidency—but the end of an era of political recycling.

And if they fail?

Somalia, as always, will survive them too—but poorer in hope.

For now, this image stands as an early signal flare in a long night: the idea that Somalia’s future leadership might finally look forward, not inward.

Welcome to Somalia, the only country on earth where time itself has been federalized, fragmented, and thoroughly humiliated.

Here, clocks are decorative items, calendars are opinion pieces, and Friday—the holiest day in Islam—has been stretched, bent, sliced, and redistributed like a contested aid package. Ask ten Somalis when Friday night begins, and you will receive ten answers, all delivered with absolute confidence and theological authority.

Is Thursday evening Friday?
Is it Saturday on Friday evening?
And most importantly: is a Somali day still 24 hours, or has it been downsized like a donor budget?

No one knows. And worse—no one agrees.

A Day That Begins Yesterday Evening and Ends Tomorrow Evening?

In today’s Somalia, a “day” is no longer a fixed unit of time. It is a political and cultural negotiation.

Friday begins when someone decides it begins. It ends when someone else says it ends. In between, weddings are scheduled, shops are closed, prayers are announced, and public debates erupt—often heated, sometimes violent—over whether now is still Friday or already Saturday.

We have managed to turn timekeeping, one of humanity’s earliest scientific achievements, into a clan-based interpretive exercise.

This is not astronomy.
This is not jurisprudence.
This is chronological anarchy.

Importing Confusion by the Container Load

Where did this madness come from?

Some blame it on “Arab ways of counting time”—the idea that a day begins at sunset, creating a Frankenstein creature made of two halves of two different days. Others point fingers at poorly translated religious traditions, half-learned fiqh lessons, and WhatsApp sheikhs who discovered theology on YouTube last week.

But let us be honest: Somalia did not just import this confusion—it weaponized it.

We imported clocks from Europe, prayers from Arabia, lunar calendars from scholars, solar calendars from colonial offices, and then never bothered to reconcile any of them. The result? A nation where Thursday night can legally, spiritually, and socially be Friday, depending on who is speaking—and where.

Federalism, But Make It Temporal

Naturally, Somalia being Somalia, even time could not escape federalism.

In one town, Friday night starts at sunset Thursday.
In another, it begins at midnight.
In a third, it starts when the mosque loudspeaker says so.
In a fourth, it starts when the wedding hall lights turn on.

We now live under Multiple Time Zones Without Borders.

GMT? Forget it.
EAT? Optional.
Somali Time? Negotiable.

This is federalism taken to its logical extreme: every community is its own time authority.

When Religion Becomes Casual and Science Optional

Ironically, this chaos is defended in the name of religion—yet it violates both religious discipline and scientific reason.

Islam is precise. Astronomy is precise. Prayer times are calculated to the minute. Yet in Somalia, we treat time like a rumor: flexible, adjustable, and open to reinterpretation after dinner.

We argue passionately about when Friday starts, but show little concern for when honesty starts, when accountability starts, or when governance starts.

Apparently, God demands accuracy in prayer times—but not in clocks.

A Nation That Lost Its Watch—and Its Way

This confusion over days is not a small issue. It is a symbol.

A country that cannot agree on when a day begins will struggle to agree on:

when elections should be held

when mandates expire

when contracts start and end

when responsibility begins

When time itself is blurred, accountability evaporates.

Missed a deadline?
“It was still Friday night.”

Extended your term?
“Friday hasn’t ended yet.”

Delayed salaries?
“Time is relative.”

Conclusion: Reset the Clock, Reset the Mind

Somalia does not need new clocks. It needs clarity of thought.

A day is 24 hours.
Friday is Friday.
Night is night.

Religion does not fear precision.
Culture does not require confusion.
And identity is not threatened by a clock that actually works.

Until Somalia makes peace with time, time will continue to mock Somalia.

And somewhere, in the middle of Thursday-Friday-Saturday, a Somali will confidently announce:

“Relax. It’s still Friday night.” The day starts from one morning until the next morning.

———–

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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/18/new-somalia-evisa-security-puts-passport-details-of-thousands-at-risk

In a sane moral universe, this question would not even exist. Hatred is hatred. Bigotry is bigotry. Dehumanization—whether aimed at Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists, or anyone else—rots societies from the inside out. Yet we do not live in a sane moral universe. We live in an age where words are not merely descriptive; they are weapons. And nowhere is this more visible than in the increasingly cynical deployment of the term antisemitism, and the conspicuous silence around its mirror image: goyism.

Let us be clear from the outset: antisemitism is real, historically catastrophic, and morally indefensible. It produced pogroms, ghettos, expulsions, and the Holocaust—the darkest industrialized crime in human history. Any attempt to trivialize or deny that legacy is obscene. Jews, like all peoples, have the absolute right to safety, dignity, and freedom from persecution.

But acknowledging that truth does not require surrendering reason. Nor does it justify the intellectual fraud now underway in many political and media circles.

From Shield to Sword: The Mutation of “Antisemitism”

Today, antisemitism has been stretched far beyond its original meaning. It is no longer confined to hatred of Jews as Jews. Instead, it is increasingly invoked to describe:

criticism of the Israeli government,

opposition to Zionist ideology,

protest against occupation, siege, or collective punishment,

or even appeals to international law and human rights.

In this distorted framework, a Jewish anti-Zionist can be labeled antisemitic, while a non-Jewish supporter of ethnic supremacy is applauded as a “friend of Israel.” This is not moral clarity. It is semantic coercion.

When a word that once named a real and deadly hatred is inflated to silence debate, it loses precision—and eventually credibility. That is not a victory against antisemitism; it is a gift to it.

The Taboo Twin: What Is Goyism?

Now enter the term no one wants to touch.

Goyism—the belief in Jewish exceptionalism taken to the point of contempt for non-Jews—is not a myth invented by antisemites. It is a documented attitude present in some religious, political, and ideological currents, just as supremacist thinking exists in all communities when power goes unchecked.

Goyism manifests when:

non-Jewish lives are treated as expendable,

international law is dismissed because “it doesn’t apply to us,”

mass civilian suffering is justified by ethnic or theological hierarchy,

critics are dehumanized as morally inferior simply for not belonging to the “chosen” group.

To name this phenomenon is not antisemitism. It is anti-supremacism. The refusal to acknowledge its existence, however, is intellectual dishonesty.

Which Is Worse?

The question itself is flawed.

Asking “which is worse” is like asking whether racism or sectarianism is more poisonous. Both kill. Both corrode. Both rely on the same logic: some lives matter more than others.

Antisemitism targets Jews.
Goyism targets non-Jews.

Both deny equal human worth. Both are morally bankrupt.

The real danger lies not in naming either, but in ranking suffering, monopolizing victimhood, and criminalizing criticism.

The WAPMEN Position: No Sacred Hatreds

Warsame Digital Media rejects all ethnic, religious, and civilizational supremacism—without exception and without fear.

Hatred of Jews is wrong. Period.

Hatred of non-Jews is wrong. Period.

Exploiting historical trauma to justify present-day injustice is wrong.

Turning moral language into a bludgeon against dissent is wrong.

There are no holy bigotries.
There are no protected supremacies.
There are no untouchable ideologies.

If antisemitism must be confronted honestly, then so must goyism. If Jewish lives matter—as they absolutely do—then all lives must matter equally, not rhetorically, but in practice.

Anything less is not justice.
It is tribalism dressed up as morality.

And history has already shown us where that road leads.

Beware of Fraudsters Exploiting Salary Delays

Members of the public are advised to remain highly vigilant. Reports indicate that thieves and con artists in Puntland are taking advantage of real and perceived stories about civil servants, workers, and members of the armed security forces who are experiencing prolonged salary delays or non-payment for months.

These individuals exploit public sympathy by falsely claiming to be unpaid government employees or security personnel, soliciting money, assistance, or other forms of support from well-meaning citizens, businesses, and members of the diaspora.

⚠️ Be cautious and alert:

Do not give money or assistance based solely on emotional appeals.

Verify claims before offering any financial or material support.

Be especially careful with requests made through phone calls, social media, or intermediaries.

Report suspicious behavior to local authorities or community leaders.

Solidarity without exploitation
While genuine hardship exists and deserves institutional solutions, fraud and deception only deepen mistrust and harm society. Helping must be guided by verification, transparency, and accountability, not manipulation.

Do not be a victim. Do not enable fraud.
Protect yourself, protect your community, and spread awareness.

Public Safety & Community Awareness Notice

Donald J. Trump and his MAGA movement are obsessed—pathologically so—with one woman: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. The evidence is not subtext; it is screamed at rallies where crowds chant “Send her back!” following his lead. It is in Trump’s own words, calling her “garbage” and her native Somalia a “filthy, dirty, disgusting” country. Omar herself has described this relentless focus as a “weird” and “creepy” obsession.

But why? Not because she commands armies or controls institutions. She doesn’t. And not because she is uniquely radical in a Congress stuffed with ideological extremes. She isn’t.

It is because she represents what MAGA fears most: a minority that did not arrive quietly, assimilate on their terms, or ask for permission to succeed. She embodies a community that, in a single generation, has gone from refugee resettlement to electing representatives to a city council, a state legislature, and the United States Congress—herself being the historic first.

This rapid ascent shatters a foundational nativist myth. To ideologues like Trump’s senior adviser Stephen Miller—whose arguments for immigration policy seek a return to 1920s-style racial quotas—groups from what he calls “third world countries” like Somalia were destined to “replicate the conditions they left.” They were meant to be permanent guests, not architects of policy.

Ilhan Omar proved them wrong. And the backlash is not merely rhetorical; it is operational. Following Trump’s inflammatory comments, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched operations targeting undocumented immigrants in the Twin Cities’ Somali community, leading to what Omar decried as the racial profiling of U.S. citizens. The administration also moved to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalis. The message is clear: rhetoric fuels policy, and fear justifies enforcement.

This pattern is driven by a single ideological engine: the Great Replacement Theory. This paranoid, racist belief that “real Americans” are being demographically and culturally replaced is now mainstream on the American right. Miller’s rhetoric “borrow[s], at least in spirit” from this conspiracy theory, warning of “voting blocs loyal to foreign interests” and “civilizational erasure.” Omar has stated that Miller “regularly echoes” this toxic theory. When arguments fail, identity is weaponized. Hence the relentless, false claims that she is in the country illegally or committed marriage fraud—the oldest tricks in the nativist handbook, designed to permanently label someone as “other.”

What truly terrifies Trumpism, then, is not Ilhan Omar the individual, but Ilhan Omar the symbol: a Black, Muslim, refugee woman who punctures their mythology. She speaks without apology, wins elections without their blessing, and, most unforgivably, defines her own American story. She calls her journey the realization of the American Dream, inspired by her grandfather’s faith in a country “where you can eventually become American.” She draws a line between the hate from official Washington and the “real America” that welcomed her.

In doing so, she holds up a mirror to America’s unresolved anxieties. She notes that this rhetoric “reminds of the way the Nazis described Jewish people in Germany,” placing it in the brutal continuum of American history—where Irish Catholics were depicted as vermin, Italians were lynched, and Japanese Americans were interned. Every non-Anglo-Saxon group has been attacked until it organized, resisted, and forced recognition.

The lesson for Somalis—and for all targeted minorities—is stark and non-negotiable: politics is not a spectator sport. Representation is not gifted. It is seized. Rights are protected not by silence but by numbers, discipline, and relentless civic engagement.

Ilhan Omar is not the problem. She is the warning of the future MAGA fears, where the marginalized claims power and  refuses to be invisible. But that future is already here with votes, organisations, and successive winnings at all levels and fields of public life.

WAPMEN EDITORIAL

There is a dangerous delusion stalking Mogadishu’s corridors of power. It goes like this: “We control the capital. We sit in Villa Somalia. Therefore, we control Somalia.”
This is not sovereignty. This is fantasy politics dressed in state uniforms.

Mogadishu is a capital city, not a crown. Villa Somalia is a building, not a mandate from the Somali people. Occupancy does not equal ownership. Sitting in a chair does not confer authority over a nation that is federal by constitution, collective by history, and plural by political reality.

The Capital Fallacy

The belief that controlling Mogadishu equals controlling Somalia is a relic of the failed unitary state that collapsed in 1991. That system died in blood and ruins. Trying to resurrect it through rhetoric and coercion is not leadership—it is historical amnesia.

Somalia today is not a city-state. It is a multi-layered federal republic composed of Federal Member States with constitutional standing, political legitimacy, and territorial ownership. No amount of flag-waving in Mogadishu can erase that fact.

Fake Sovereignty, Real Damage

Claiming monopoly over Somali foreign policy, national representation, and sovereignty—while ignoring or marginalizing Federal Member States—is not statecraft. It is institutional fraud.

Sovereignty in a federal system is shared, negotiated, and consent-based. It flows upward from the people and their states, not downward from Villa Somalia press releases. Without the endorsement, participation, and consent of Puntland, Jubaland, Southwest, and Galmudug, Hirshabelle, there is no legitimate national authority—only a shrinking circle of self-affirmation.

Somalia Is Not Owned—It Is Held in Trust

Somalia is a collective political property, not the private estate of whoever controls Mogadishu’s checkpoints. The Federal Government is a trustee, not a landlord. Trustees who mistake themselves for owners always end the same way: rejected, resisted, and eventually removed.

You do not control Somalia because:

You control Mogadishu

You sit in Villa Somalia

You issue passports or attend international forums

You control Somalia only when all its constituent states consent to the project. Anything else is delusion backed by insecurity.

The Federal Reality Check

Federalism is not optional. It is not a concession. It is the price of Somali survival after state collapse. Attempts to centralize power by sidelining states, weaponizing foreign policy, or pretending Somalia begins and ends at KM4 are acts of political sabotage.

The sooner Mogadishu’s power-holders accept this reality, the better. Somalia does not need another strongman fantasy. It needs constitutional humility, shared governance, and genuine partnership.

Final Word

Villa Somalia is not Somalia.
Mogadishu is not the country.
Control without consent is not sovereignty—it is occupation of office.

Somalia belongs to all its peoples, all its states, and all its regions—or it belongs to no one at all.

—

Support WAPMEN — the home of fearless, independent journalism that speaks truth to power across Somalia and the region.
Tel/WhatsApp: +252 90 703 4081.

WAPMEN Academic Essay / Policy Paper

Ismail H. Warsame
Founder & Editor-in-Chief, WAPMEN (Warsame Policy & Media Network)
Former Chief of Cabinet (Chief of Staff), Puntland State of Somalia (1998–2004)

Abstract

WAPMEN Policy Context: This academic essay is published as part of the Warsame Policy & Media Network (WAPMEN) series on Somali state formation, federalism, and conflict governance. It is intended for scholars, policymakers, federal and state-level officials, and international partners engaged in Somalia’s political stabilization.

The early years of Puntland State of Somalia were marked by profound institutional fragility, contested legitimacy, and acute security dilemmas. This paper examines the 2000–2001 internal military confrontation involving Jama Ali Jama and General Adde Muse Hersi against the administration of Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. While acknowledging the personal sacrifices and historical roles of the principal actors, the study argues that two core strategic miscalculations shaped the outcome of the conflict: first, the assumption that control of Bosaso port equated to control of Puntland State; and second, the misreading of the confrontation as a narrow intra-clan dispute rather than a challenge to a broader political compact underpinning Puntland’s formation. By situating these errors within theories of state formation, political legitimacy, and post-conflict governance, the paper contributes to a deeper understanding of why early Puntland survived internal fracture and what lessons this episode offers for contemporary Somali federalism.

Keywords: Puntland, Bosaso Port, state formation, legitimacy, Somali federalism, political conflict

1. Introduction

The establishment of Puntland State in 1998 represented one of the earliest attempts to reconstruct Somali governance after the collapse of the central state in 1991. Conceived as a bottom-up political project rooted in local reconciliation and collective security, Puntland emerged in an environment characterized by institutional weakness, militarization of politics, and unresolved clan grievances. Within three years of its founding, Puntland faced an existential crisis during the 2000–2001 internal confrontation that pitted rival political-military coalitions against each other.

This paper revisits that crisis through an analytical lens rather than a purely commemorative or polemical one. While written in the context of remembrance and condolence for the late Jama Ali Jama and General Adde Muse Hersi, it seeks to extract analytically useful lessons from their political choices and strategic calculations. The central question addressed is not one of moral judgment, but of political reasoning: why did the challenge to the Puntland state project fail, and what does this reveal about the nature of authority, legitimacy, and statehood in post-collapse Somalia?

2. Historical Context: Puntland’s Foundational Moment

Puntland’s formation was the product of a series of reconciliation conferences involving eastern and northeastern Darood clans, culminating in the Garowe constitutional process of 1998. Unlike faction-based administrations in southern Somalia, Puntland articulated itself as a collective political covenant designed to restore order, provide basic governance, and shield its territory from the centrifugal violence afflicting the rest of the country (Lewis 2002; Samatar 2001).

However, this foundational consensus remained fragile. Institutions were nascent, security forces were unevenly integrated, and political authority rested as much on negotiated legitimacy as on coercive capacity. In such an environment, political disputes—particularly leadership succession and constitutional interpretation—carried a high risk of militarization. The 2000–2001 confrontation must therefore be understood not as an anomaly, but as a stress test of an unproven political system.

3. The First Strategic Miscalculation: Bosaso as a Proxy for State Power

A central assumption guiding the strategy of Jama Ali Jama and General Adde Muse Hersi was that control of Bosaso port—Puntland’s principal economic artery on the Gulf of Aden—would translate into effective control of the state. From a materialist perspective, this reasoning had surface plausibility. Bosaso generated customs revenue, facilitated external trade, and served as Puntland’s main gateway to the outside world.

Yet this assumption conflated economic leverage with political legitimacy. As studies of state formation emphasize, territorial control and revenue extraction alone do not constitute state authority; they must be embedded in recognized political frameworks and social consent (Menkhaus 2004; de Waal 2003). Puntland’s cohesion in 2000–2001 derived less from Bosaso’s revenues than from a widely shared perception that the state represented a collective achievement worth defending.

By reducing Puntland to a strategic port city, the challengers underestimated the depth of political identification that had already formed around the Puntland project. This miscalculation limited their ability to mobilize sustained support beyond narrow constituencies and rendered their military gains politically hollow.

4. The Second Strategic Miscalculation: Clan Reductionism and the Loss of Political Vision

More consequential than the first error was the interpretation of the conflict as an intra-clan struggle within the Mohamud Saleimaan lineage. This framing ignored the reality that Puntland’s legitimacy rested on a broader inter-clan compact encompassing multiple Darood communities across Bari, Nugaal, Mudug, Sanaag, and Sool.

Clan identity has always been a central axis of Somali politics, but successful political projects are those that transcend lineage arithmetic by institutionalizing collective interests (Hoehne 2006). By approaching the confrontation as a sub-clan dispute, Jama Ali Jama and General Adde Muse Hersi failed to recognize that many actors—regardless of internal disagreements—perceived the challenge as a threat to the very survival of Puntland State.

This misreading produced strategic isolation. Rather than fracturing Puntland along clan lines, the confrontation consolidated a defensive coalition around the incumbent administration, reinforcing the notion that the state itself, not any single leader, was under siege.

5. Outcomes and Costs

The failure of these strategic assumptions had lasting consequences. Politically, the challengers were marginalized; militarily, their efforts were contained; institutionally, Puntland emerged more centralized and security-conscious than before. The costs, however, extended beyond individual careers. The confrontation deepened mistrust, militarized politics, and delayed institutional consolidation during a critical formative period.

At the same time, the episode demonstrated a crucial insight: even in its infancy, Puntland possessed a form of political resilience rooted in collective legitimacy rather than coercive dominance alone. This resilience helps explain Puntland’s relative durability compared to other post-1991 Somali administrations.

6. Discussion: Lessons for Somali Federalism

The 2000–2001 Puntland crisis offers enduring lessons for Somali federalism. First, economic assets—ports, airports, and revenue nodes—cannot substitute for political legitimacy grounded in inclusive governance. Second, reducing political conflicts to clan binaries obscures broader social compacts and often backfires strategically. Finally, early-state survival in fragmented societies depends less on individual leaders than on shared narratives of collective ownership.

These lessons remain relevant as Somalia continues to grapple with contested federal authority, resource disputes, and center–periphery tensions. The Puntland case underscores that even fragile political orders can endure when perceived as legitimate and collectively owned.

7. Conclusion

Remembering Jama Ali Jama and General Adde Muse Hersi requires neither hagiography nor erasure. They were political actors shaped by an extraordinarily volatile moment, making consequential decisions under immense pressure. Their strategic miscalculations during the 2000–2001 confrontation illuminate, rather than diminish, the structural realities of Puntland’s early statehood.

Ultimately, this episode affirms a central proposition: a state cannot be held by a port alone, nor reduced to clan arithmetic. Legitimacy, once forged through collective struggle, becomes a durable force—one that can outlast both ambition and error. Reflecting honestly on this history is not an act of condemnation, but a necessary step toward a more stable and just Somali political future.

Policy Implications and Recommendations

1. Ports Are Strategic Assets, Not Sovereign Substitutes. Federal and state actors should avoid equating control of economic nodes (ports, airports, customs) with political authority. Sustainable governance requires legitimacy grounded in inclusive political compacts.

2. Reject Clan Reductionism in State Conflicts. Policymakers must resist framing federal or state disputes as sub-clan rivalries; such narratives obscure broader political settlements and escalate conflict.

3. Protect Foundational Political Compacts. Early-state agreements—such as Puntland’s 1998 covenant—should be treated as constitutional assets deserving protection during leadership disputes.

4. Institutionalize Conflict Resolution Mechanisms. Somalia’s federal system requires non-militarized arbitration mechanisms for constitutional and electoral disputes to prevent recurrence of armed confrontations.

5. Leverage Historical Memory as Policy Guidance. Somali political actors and international partners should integrate historical case studies into governance reform strategies rather than treating each crisis as unprecedented.

Bibliography

Menkhaus, Ken. Somalia: State Collapse and the Threat of Terrorism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Lewis, Ioan M. A Modern History of the Somali: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa. 4th ed. Oxford: James Currey, 2002.

Samatar, Abdi Ismail. “Puntland and the Crisis of Somali Federalism.” Bildhaan 1 (2001): 54–67.

Hoehne, Markus. “Political Identity, Emerging State Structures and Conflict in Northern Somalia.” Journal of Modern African Studies 44, no. 3 (2006): 397–414.

de Waal, Alex. “The Politics of Destabilisation in the Horn of Africa.” Global Dialogue 5, no. 1–2 (2003): 1–12.

Warsame, Ismail H. Talking Truth to Power: Essays on Somali Governance, Federalism, and State Collapse. Nairobi: Warsame Digital Media, 2019.

Warsame, Ismail H. “Statehood, Ports, and Political Legitimacy in Puntland.” Warsame Digital Media (WDM), n.d.

Warsame, Ismail H. “Puntland at the Crossroads: Founding Ideals and Political Fragmentation.” Warsame Digital Media (WDM), n.d.

Warsame Digital Media (WDM). “Puntland’s Founding Moment and the 2000–2001 Internal Confrontation.” Editorial series, n.d.

In Remembrance and Condolence

With profound sorrow and solemn reflection, we extend our heartfelt condolences on the passing of Jama Ali Jama and General Adde Muse Hersi. Their lives were intertwined with the early, turbulent birth of Puntland State—a chapter of history into which their names are indelibly etched. May Allah in His infinite mercy grant them peace, forgive their shortcomings, and bestow patience and strength upon their families, friends, comrades, and all who mourn them.

They lived and led during one of the most fragile periods in modern Somali history—a time when Puntland was in its first breath, its institutions mere sketches, and political disputes too often descended into armed confrontation. In such volatility, decisions were forged under immense pressure, shaped by a confluence of fear, ambition, miscalculation, and the heavy burden of legacy.

History records that during the military confrontation of 2000–2001, both men committed grave strategic and political misjudgments.

The First Error: A Misplaced Equation
They operated under the belief that control of Bosaso—the vital port on the Gulf of Aden—equated to control of Puntland itself.This view tragically reduced the nascent state to a mere geographic and economic prize. In reality, Puntland was not just a port or a revenue stream. It was—and remains—a political project, a collective will, and an emerging state sustained by shared sacrifice and a legitimacy that transcends territory.

The Second, Deeper Error: A Failure of Vision
They interpreted the conflict through a dangerously narrow lens—as an intra-clan struggle within the Mohamud Saleimaan.This perspective blinded them to a fundamental truth: Puntland represented a historic covenant among the eastern and northeastern Darood clans, a union forged to defend a new political order against the tides of fragmentation. In missing this, they overlooked the broad-based social and political consensus that had already crystallized around Puntland’s survival and sovereignty.

The cost of these errors was high, paid not only in their personal destinies but in the stability and cohesion of that fragile moment.

Yet, to remember is not to simplify. History renders no leader as purely angel or demon. Each is a product of their time, navigating imperfect choices under the weight of impossible circumstances.

As we honor their memory, let us do so with humility and historical honesty. May their story serve as an enduring lesson: that a state cannot be held by a port alone; that legitimacy is never merely clan arithmetic; and that unity, born of collective struggle, becomes a force not easily broken.

May Allah grant Jama Ali Jama and General Adde Muse Hersi His utmost mercy and eternal rest. And may Somalia, through reflection on its painful past, continue to walk the path toward a more peaceful and just future.

Further reading:

THE LATE ADVOCATE YUSUF HAJI  NUR

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Bibliography

1. Ken Menkhaus, Somalia: State Collapse and the Threat of Terrorism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 47–69.

2. Ioan M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa, 4th ed. (Oxford: James Currey, 2002), 285–292.

3. Ismail H. Warsame, Talking Truth to Power: Essays on Somali Governance, Federalism, and State Collapse (Nairobi: Warsame Digital Media, 2019), 112–126.

4. Abdi Ismail Samatar, “Puntland and the Crisis of Somali Federalism,” Bildhaan 1 (2001): 54–67.

5. Ismail H. Warsame, “Statehood, Ports, and Political Legitimacy in Puntland,” Warsame Digital Media (WDM), n.d., https://ismailwarsame.wordpress.com/.

6. Markus Hoehne, “Political Identity, Emerging State Structures and Conflict in Northern Somalia,” Journal of Modern African Studies 44, no. 3 (2006): 397–414.

7. Warsame Digital Media (WDM), “Puntland’s Founding Moment and the 2000–2001 Internal Confrontation,” editorial series, n.d.

8. Alex de Waal, “The Politics of Destabilisation in the Horn of Africa,” Global Dialogue 5, no. 1–2 (2003): 1–12.

9. Ismail H. Warsame, “Puntland at the Crossroads: Founding Ideals and Political Fragmentation,” Warsame Digital Media (WDM), n.d.

https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2025/12/11/economist-immigrants-contribute-26-billion-to-minnesotas-economy

ICE Agents Tackle, Pepper-Spray U.S. Citizens in Minneapolis; “Operation Metro Surge” Sparks Fear, Fury in Somali Community

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Federal immigration agents are waging open war on American soil, violently detaining U.S. citizens, unleashing chemical weapons on crowds, and terrorizing a whole community under orders from the top.

This is not a border. This is Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis. And this is the shocking reality of ICE’s “Operation Metro Surge.”

SHOVED TO THE PAVEMENT: “I’M A CITIZEN!”
On Tuesday, in a scene ripped from an authoritarian crackdown, ICE agents sprinted after a Somali-American man, tackled him to the ground, and slapped him in cuffs—all as he desperately shouted he was a U.S. citizen and shoved his ID in their faces.

They took him anyway. He was hauled to an ICE office, forcibly fingerprinted, and held until bureaucracy finally confirmed what he screamed on the street: He is an American. This is what “surge” looks like: the arrest of a citizen on a public sidewalk.

PEPPER SPRAY AND PANIC
Just one day earlier,on Monday, the same neighborhood choked on clouds of pepper spray. ICE agents, conducting ID checks, fired the chemical irritant directly at a crowd of protesters who dared to block their vehicles. No arrests. Just punishment by aerosol.

The message is clear: comply or burn.

THE SURGE IS HERE
The violence flows directly from Washington.On December 4th, ICE proudly announced “Operation Metro Surge,” a dragnet targeting “criminal illegal aliens.” But the first week’s carnage tells a different story: citizens detained, crowds gassed, and a community paralyzed by fear.

People now carry passports to go to the grocery store. Businesses are empty. In a stunning act of solidarity, Latino shops are now offering free delivery to Somalis too afraid to leave their homes.

TRUMP: “TERMINATE” AND “GARBAGE”
The fuel on this fire?President Donald Trump. He has labeled Somali immigrants “garbage” and officially terminated their Temporary Protected Status (TPS), signing a death warrant for thousands. The rhetoric from the top has given agents the green light for chaos on the ground.

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS FIGHT BACK
While federal agents raid,local leaders are rebelling. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has banned the use of city property to stage these raids. The St. Paul City Council is demanding an investigation after its own police force fired pepper balls and chemical irritants at protesters last month.

But it may be too little, too late. The rule book has been shredded. The surge is on.

COMMUNITY UNDER SIEGE
“The fear is everywhere,”a community leader told WAPMEN, voice trembling. “We are hunting for groceries, not freedom, in the land of the free.” The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) has formed an emergency task force, urging anyone confronted by ICE to call 612-206-3360 immediately.

This is a developing story. WAPMEN is  monitoring the situation on the ground. Stay with us.

#MetroSurge #SomaliCommunity #ICERaids #BreakingNews.

Democracy

Kala Saar Maamul Dawladeed, Dhaqanka iyo Diinta

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DPLtchzST/

[Courtesy: Facebook].

[Courtesy]

[Courtesy].

Donald J. Trump has many political talents, but foresight is not one of them. In singling out Somali-Americans — a community that has clawed its way through war, exile, oceans, and the grinding machinery of American bureaucracy — he has cracked open a Pandora’s box that will not close again. And inside that box is something Trump never anticipated: a fearless, unbreakable Somali fighting spirit sharpened over centuries, and a rapid, organized American response that has turned his attack into a strategic blunder.

Trump thought he could unleash the megaphone of the White House against one of America’s most resilient immigrant communities. In a Cabinet meeting, he declared of Somalis, “I don’t want them in our country” and stated the U.S. would “go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage”. He assumed Somali-Americans would cower, scatter, fold under the weight of a presidential assault and the immediate launch of “Operation Metro Surge,” an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) action in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. He assumed wrong.

The Somali Spirit Meets the MAGA Machine

Trump’s political survival has often depended on targeting immigrants and Muslims. This time, he miscalculated. Somali-Americans are not a silent community. They are not powerless guests. They are Americans: of the roughly 84,000 to 98,000 Somali-Americans in Minnesota, the vast majority—estimated at 83% nationally—are naturalized U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.

They are business owners, state legislators, city council members, and a U.S. Representative. Their defiance was immediate. “I am not garbage. I’m a proud American citizen,” said Hamse Warfa, a Somali-born entrepreneur in Minneapolis. This sentiment echoes from a community that understands a painful truth: when the president puts a “bull’s eye” on you, it encourages others to become “more radicalized”. The fear is real—businesses in cultural hubs like Karmel Mall closed, medical appointments were canceled, and people were afraid to leave home. Minneapolis City Council member Jamal Osman, a naturalized citizen, advised constituents to carry their passports, drawing a stark historical parallel.

Yet, the community’s response has been one of disciplined mobilization, not retreat. Organizations scheduled “legal observer training,” established emergency hotlines, and created private networks to share photos of unmarked cars and masked agents. As one community leader put it, “Is there fear? Absolutely. But no one is tucking behind their tail”.

America Responds — And Trump Hates It

Across the United States — and notably throughout Minnesota — Americans of every color and political stripe are rejecting Trump’s attempt to isolate the Somali community.

Political Leadership:

· Governor Tim Walz (D): Called Trump’s statements “vile, racist lies,” and declared that anyone unable to condemn them is “complicit”.
· Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D): Stood with the community, prompting Trump to dismiss him as a “fool”.
· Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara: Attended interfaith prayer services and, citing concerns over impersonators, told residents to call 911 if unsure about individuals claiming to be federal agents.

Trump wanted a wedge issue; instead he has triggered a coalition. He wanted fear; instead he has ignited a resolve to protect neighbors. He wanted to intimidate; instead he has exposed his own playbook. As Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan stated, this operation is about “striking fear into the hearts of Minnesotans” to distract from a failed record.

Pandora’s Box Is Now Wide Open

Trump doesn’t understand Somalis. A people whose kin in Mogadishu run a city’s only free ambulance service, operate the nation’s first rape crisis center, and build new businesses amid insecurity will not collapse because one man with a bullhorn shouts insults. The diaspora thrives everywhere it lands. Trump imagined he was attacking a small, vulnerable minority. In reality, he struck a transnational community with a generational memory of survival.

He has awakened a political force he cannot control, as seen in the swift launch of initiatives like a campaign for a Somali Heritage Month.
He has energized a voting bloc he cannot suppress—citizens who are now more politically organized than ever.
He has provoked a cultural pride he cannot silence, echoing from Minnesota to Galkayo, where citizens push back by highlighting their resilience and contributions.

Somalis do not fight small fights. And when they fight, they do not lose.

Trump’s Worst Strategic Mistake

In trying to humiliate Somali-Americans, Trump has humiliated himself. In trying to bully them into silence, he has made them louder and more organized. In trying to single them out, he has fused them into a political force and rallied Americans behind them.

His instinct to vilify, honed on other immigrant groups, has this time detonated in his hands. He has united Somalis and their allies in common cause, transforming a moment of fear into a catalyst for powerful, structured defense and advocacy.

Watch What Happens Next

If Trump thinks he can win elections by targeting Somali-Americans, he is about to receive a political lesson in Somali resilience.

For every insult he throws, Somali-Americans become more organized, expanding legal networks and community watches.
For every threat he makes,they become more mobilized, asserting their American identity with defiant pride.
For every policy he weaponizes,they become more entrenched in the American fabric than he ever imagined.

Trump opened the Somali Pandora’s Box. Inside was not the chaos he sought, but the formidable spirit of a community that has overcome hell, and the solidarity of a nation that remembers its ideals. He will not like what comes out of it.

Watch this space. The Somali spirit is awake — and it does not sleep again.

WAPMEN Editorial Board

By MARK FINEMAN

Jan. 18, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside.

That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield significant amounts of oil and natural gas if the U.S.-led military mission can restore peace to the impoverished East African nation.

According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia’s pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration’s decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there.

Officially, the Administration and the State Department insist that the U.S. military mission in Somalia is strictly humanitarian. Oil industry spokesmen dismissed as “absurd” and “nonsense” allegations by aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts and several prominent Somalis that President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part, by the U.S. corporate oil stake.

But corporate and scientific documents disclosed that the American companies are well positioned to pursue Somalia’s most promising potential oil reserves the moment the nation is pacified. And the State Department and U.S. military officials acknowledge that one of those oil companies has done more than simply sit back and hope for peace.

Conoco Inc., the only major multinational corporation to maintain a functioning office in Mogadishu throughout the past two years of nationwide anarchy, has been directly involved in the U.S. government’s role in the U.N.-sponsored humanitarian military effort.

Conoco, whose tireless exploration efforts in north-central Somalia reportedly had yielded the most encouraging prospects just before Siad Barre’s fall, permitted its Mogadishu corporate compound to be transformed into a de facto American embassy a few days before the U.S. Marines landed in the capital, with Bush’s special envoy using it as his temporary headquarters. In addition, the president of the company’s subsidiary in Somalia won high official praise for serving as the government’s volunteer “facilitator” during the months before and during the U.S. intervention.

Describing the arrangement as “a business relationship,” an official spokesman for the Houston-based parent corporation of Conoco Somalia Ltd. said the U.S. government was paying rental for its use of the compound, and he insisted that Conoco was proud of resident general manager Raymond Marchand’s contribution to the U.S.-led humanitarian effort.

John Geybauer, spokesman for Conoco Oil in Houston, said the company was acting as “a good corporate citizen and neighbor” in granting the U.S. government’s request to be allowed to rent the compound. The U.S. Embassy and most other buildings and residential compounds here in the capital were rendered unusable by vandalism and fierce artillery duels during the clan wars that have consumed Somalia and starved its people.

In its in-house magazine last month, Conoco reprinted excerpts from a letter of commendation for Marchand written by U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Frank Libutti, who has been acting as military aide to U.S. envoy Robert B. Oakley. In the letter, Libutti praised the oil official for his role in the initial operation to land Marines on Mogadishu’s beaches in December, and the general concluded, “Without Raymond’s courageous contributions and selfless service, the operation would have failed.”

But the close relationship between Conoco and the U.S. intervention force has left many Somalis and foreign development experts deeply troubled by the blurry line between the U.S. government and the large oil company, leading many to liken the Somalia operation to a miniature version of Operation Desert Storm, the U.S.-led military effort in January, 1991, to drive Iraq from Kuwait and, more broadly, safeguard the world’s largest oil reserves.

“They sent all the wrong signals when Oakley moved into the Conoco compound,” said one expert on Somalia who worked with one of the four major companies as they intensified their exploration efforts in the country in the late 1980s.

“It’s left everyone thinking the big question here isn’t famine relief but oil–whether the oil concessions granted under Siad Barre will be transferred if and when peace is restored,” the expert said. “It’s potentially worth billions of dollars, and believe me, that’s what the whole game is starting to look like.”

Although most oil experts outside Somalia laugh at the suggestion that the nation ever could rank among the world’s major oil producers–and most maintain that the international aid mission is intended simply to feed Somalia’s starving masses–no one doubts that there is oil in Somalia. The only question: How much?

“It’s there. There’s no doubt there’s oil there,” said Thomas E. O’Connor, the principal petroleum engineer for the World Bank, who headed an in-depth, three-year study of oil prospects in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia’s northern coast.

“You don’t know until you study a lot further just how much is there,” O’Connor said. “But it has commercial potential. It’s got high potential . . . once the Somalis get their act together.”

O’Connor, a professional geologist, based his conclusion on the findings of some of the world’s top petroleum geologists. In a 1991 World Bank-coordinated study, intended to encourage private investment in the petroleum potential of eight African nations, the geologists put Somalia and Sudan at the top of the list of prospective commercial oil producers.

Presenting their results during a three-day conference in London in September, 1991, two of those geologists, an American and an Egyptian, reported that an analysis of nine exploratory wells drilled in Somalia indicated that the region is “situated within the oil window, and thus (is) highly prospective for gas and oil.” A report by a third geologist, Z. R. Beydoun, said offshore sites possess “the geological parameters conducive to the generation, expulsion and trapping of significant amounts of oil and gas.”

Beydoun, who now works for Marathon Oil in London, cautioned in a recent interview that on the basis of his findings alone, “you cannot say there definitely is oil,” but he added: “The different ingredients for generation of oil are there. The question is whether the oil generated there has been trapped or whether it dispersed or evaporated.”

Beginning in 1986, Conoco, along with Amoco, Chevron, Phillips and, briefly, Shell all sought and obtained exploration licenses for northern Somalia from Siad Barre’s government. Somalia was soon carved up into concessional blocs, with Conoco, Amoco and Chevron winning the right to explore and exploit the most promising ones.

The companies’ interest in Somalia clearly predated the World Bank study. It was grounded in the findings of another, highly successful exploration effort by the Texas-based Hunt Oil Corp. across the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Peninsula nation of Yemen, where geologists disclosed in the mid-1980s that the estimated 1 billion barrels of Yemeni oil reserves were part of a great underground rift, or valley, that arced into and across northern Somalia.

Hunt’s Yemeni operation, which is now yielding nearly 200,000 barrels of oil a day, and its implications for the entire region were not lost on then-Vice President George Bush.

In fact, Bush witnessed it firsthand in April, 1986, when he officially dedicated Hunt’s new $18-million refinery near the ancient Yemeni town of Marib. In remarks during the event, Bush emphasized the critical value of supporting U.S. corporate efforts to develop and safeguard potential oil reserves in the region.

In his speech, Bush stressed “the growing strategic importance to the West of developing crude oil sources in the region away from the Strait of Hormuz,” according to a report three weeks later in the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey.

Bush’s reference was to the geographical choke point that controls access to the Persian Gulf and its vast oil reserves. It came at the end of a 10-day Middle East tour in which the vice president drew fire for appearing to advocate higher oil and gasoline prices.

“Throughout the course of his 17,000-mile trip, Bush suggested continued low (oil) prices would jeopardize a domestic oil industry ‘vital to the national security interests of the United States,’ which was interpreted at home and abroad as a sign the onetime oil driller from Texas was coming to the aid of his former associates,” United Press International reported from Washington the day after Bush dedicated Hunt’s Yemen refinery.

No such criticism accompanied Bush’s decision late last year to send more than 20,000 U.S. troops to Somalia, widely applauded as a bold and costly step to save an estimated 2 million Somalis from starvation by opening up relief supply lines and pacifying the famine-struck nation.

But since the U.S. intervention began, neither the Bush Administration nor any of the oil companies that had been active in Somalia up until the civil war broke out in early 1991 have commented publicly on Somalia’s potential for oil and natural gas production. Even in private, veteran oil company exploration experts played down any possible connection between the Administration’s move into Somalia and the corporate concessions at stake.

“In the oil world, Somalia is a fringe exploration area,” said one Conoco executive who asked not to be named. “They’ve overexaggerated it,” he said of the geologists’ optimism about the prospective oil reserves there. And as for Washington’s motives in Somalia, he brushed aside criticisms that have been voiced quietly in Mogadishu, saying, “With America, there is a genuine humanitarian streak in us . . . that many other countries and cultures cannot understand.”

But the same source added that Conoco’s decision to maintain its headquarters in the Somali capital even after it pulled out the last of its major equipment in the spring of 1992 was certainly not a humanitarian one. And he confirmed that the company, which has explored Somalia in three major phases beginning in 1952, had achieved “very good oil shows”–industry terminology for an exploration phase that often precedes a major discovery–just before the war broke out.

“We had these very good shows,” he said. “We were pleased. That’s why Conoco stayed on. . . . The people in Houston are convinced there’s oil there.”

Indeed, the same Conoco World article that praised Conoco’s general manager in Somalia for his role in the humanitarian effort quoted Marchand as saying, “We stayed because of Somalia’s potential for the company and to protect our assets.”

Marchand, a French citizen who came to Somalia from Chad after a civil war forced Conoco to suspend operations there, explained the role played by his firm in helping set up the U.S.-led pacification mission in Mogadishu.

“When the State Department asked Conoco management for assistance, I was glad to use the company’s influence in Somalia for the success of this mission,” he said in the magazine article. “I just treated it like a company operation–like moving a rig. I did it for this operation because the (U.S.) officials weren’t familiar with the environment.”

Marchand and his company were clearly familiar with the anarchy into which Somalia has descended over the past two years–a nation with no functioning government, no utilities and few roads, a place ruled loosely by regional warlords.

Of the four U.S. companies holding the Siad Barre-era oil concessions, Conoco is believed to be the only one that negotiated what spokesman Geybauer called “a standstill agreement” with an interim government set up by one of Mogadishu’s two principal warlords, Ali Mahdi Mohamed. Industry sources said the other U.S. companies with contracts in Somalia cited “ force majeure “ (superior power), a legal term asserting that they were forced by the war to abandon their exploration efforts and would return as soon as peace is restored.

“It’s going to be very interesting to see whether these agreements are still good,” said Mohamed Jirdeh, a prominent Somali businessman in Mogadishu who is familiar with the oil-concession agreements. “Whatever Siad did, all those records and contracts, all disappeared after he fled. . . . And this period has brought with it a deep change of our society.

“Our country is now very weak, and, of course, the American oil companies are very strong. This has to be handled very diplomatically, and I think the American government must move out of the oil business, or at least make clear that there is a definite line separating the two, if they want to maintain a long-term relationship here.”

Fineman, Times bureau chief in Nicosia, Cyprus, was recently in Somalia.

[Courtesy: Los Angeles Times].

The dream of a stable, unified Somalia, rebuilt upon a federal framework, has long been the central pillar of the nation’s post-conflict political order. Yet, beneath the official rhetoric of shared governance and equitable power distribution, a persistent and contentious reality simmers: the profound unevenness in federal employment across the Federal Member States (FMS). While comprehensive, verifiable statistics from sources like the World Bank remain elusive in the public domain, the political discourse in Somalia is saturated with allegations of severe regional imbalance. Critics, particularly from opposition-aligned states like Puntland and Jubaland, contend that the federal civil service is overwhelmingly dominated by employees from Mogadishu and its immediate environs, notably the Hirshabelle state. This perceived inequity is not a mere administrative grievance; it is a live wire electrifying Somalia’s most profound political crises, serving as both a symptom and a cause of the failing federal compact.

The argument, as advanced by voices such as Ismail Warsame, a former Puntland official and vocal commentator, posits a stark disparity. It suggests that a vast majority—potentially up to 65%—of federal positions are filled by individuals from the Mogadishu-Hirshabelle axis, with states like Puntland purportedly holding less than 2.5%. Whether these exact figures are accurate is less critical than the pervasive belief in their truth, a belief that fuels deep-seated resentment. This perception transforms the civil service from a national institution into an instrument of patronage, where jobs are rewards for political loyalty rather than merit-based appointments to serve all Somali people. For states on the periphery, this translates to a tangible exclusion from the economic benefits and decision-making influence of the central government, entrenching a feeling of second-class status within the very union they are meant to co-own.

This imbalance in federal employment is inextricably linked to the broader, more explosive conflicts over political autonomy and constitutional power. The uneven share of jobs is viewed as the human manifestation of a centralizing state, an accusation consistently leveled at the administration of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. The current crisis with Jubaland provides a textbook example. When Jubaland proceeded with its own regional election in late 2024, re-electing President Ahmed Madobe against the wishes of Mogadishu, the Federal Government declared the process unconstitutional. This political dispute rapidly escalated into military confrontation in the Ras Kamboni area. From Jubaland’s perspective, Mogadishu’s attempt to invalidate its election is of a piece with its refusal to share federal resources and jobs equitably—both are seen as assaults on the core principles of federalism, designed to subordinate the state to the capital’s will.

Similarly, Puntland, often described as the federation’s most stable and functional polity, has positioned itself as the lead critic of Mogadishu’s centralizing tendencies. Its leadership frames the inequity in federal representation as evidence of a “creeping dictatorship” and has formed a potent opposition coalition with Jubaland. For Puntland and Jubaland, the uneven employment landscape proves that the federal government prioritizes control over collaboration, rendering the constitutional promise of a voluntary union of equal states a hollow one.

Conversely, states perceived to be in closer alignment with Mogadishu, such as Galmudug and the Southwest State, are often characterized in opposition discourse as existing in the “shadows” of the capital. The allegation is that their relative political compliance is reciprocated with a greater share of federal patronage, including jobs, further distorting the national distribution. This dynamic creates a self-reinforcing cycle: closer alignment brings more federal resources to local elites, which strengthens their position, ensuring continued support for Mogadishu, thereby perpetuating the imbalance.

The consequences of this dysfunction are severe and extend far beyond political squabbling. A federal civil service perceived as illegitimate and exclusionary lacks the broad-based credibility to effectively implement national policy. This administrative weakness directly undermines the most critical national struggle: the fight against Al-Shabab. Military offensives require cohesive political and logistical support; a federal government distrusted by major component states cannot marshal a unified front. Reports of Al-Shabab making gains in regions like Hirshabelle in early 2025 occur against this backdrop of profound federal fragmentation, where security strategy is hampered by political distrust.

Ultimately, the debate over the uneven share of federal employees is a debate about the soul of Somali federalism. Is it a genuine pact for sharing power and building a common future, or is it a vehicle for the reconcentration of authority in Mogadishu? The palpable anger from Puntland and Jubaland, manifesting in opposition alliances and even armed clashes, suggests that for them, the current system is failing the basic test of equity. The Provisional Constitution’s vagueness on critical details of resource and power-sharing has created a vacuum filled by political conflict. Until a transparent, verifiable, and equitable framework for federal representation—in both the civil service and political institutions—is agreed upon and implemented, the Somali federation will remain an imperfect and unstable union. The equitable distribution of jobs is not just an administrative task; it is a fundamental prerequisite for building the trust necessary to hold a fragile nation together.

A WAPMEN Editorial — Speaking Truth to Power, Without Fear or Favour

There are moments when a nation’s leadership is tested not by its enemies, but by its own choices. The bloodshed in Borama is one such moment—a direct, preventable crisis born from a failure to listen.

It was not an accident.
It was not a mere“security incident.”
It was thedirect result of a political decision—the plan to host the divisive “Issa Law” ceremony in Zeila—that lit a match in Awdal. The government’s response, using live ammunition against its own civilians, leaving at least 17 dead, is a catastrophic failure of governance written in fire and denial.

But if you thought Somaliland learned anything from the Goojacadde catastrophe—
If you thought leaders in Hargeisa had re-examined their instinct to impose rather than consult—
If you thought the military defeat in Sool had spurred political wisdom—
The Borama massacre proves you wrong. Spectacularly wrong.

Goojacadde: A Lesson in Military and Political Defeat, Thoroughly Ignored

For two decades, Somaliland has sold a global narrative of “democracy” and “stability.” Yet in Sool, it exercised coercive power over a community that did not consent to its rule. The result was not stability, but a popular armed uprising that culminated in the strategic and humiliating loss of the Goojacadde military base in August 2023. Soldiers were captured, equipment was lost, and territory was reclaimed by SSC-Khatumo forces with the help of the so-called “Hiil Walaal”.

Goojacadde was a lesson shouted by history: there is no durable control without the consent of the governed.

Yet, Somaliland’s leadership treated it as a military mishap, not the symptom of a deep political illness—the arrogance of imposing will from Hargeisa.

Borama: The Same Disease, A Different Eruption

Borama is not Sool. It is not Las Anod. It is the city of the 1993 Grand Conference, a foundational pillar of Somaliland’s very project. Here, the crisis was triggered not by years of warfare, but by a single, tone-deaf political maneuver—a law perceived as a territorial threat, unveiled in a region that saw it as a betrayal.

The pattern, however, is lethally familiar: Break trust → impose a decision → meet dissent with lethal force → blame the victims.

Once again:

· Civic outrage was met with a state bullet.
· Youth demanding accountability were treated as enemies.
· The government’s delayed reversal came only after the streets were stained with blood.

This is not governance. This is political self-sabotage on repeat—proving that the disease which infected policy in Sool is now metastasizing at home.

The Crumbling Myth of “The Somaliland Model“

Somaliland’s ruling elite operates on a fatal miscalculation: that suppressing grievances creates unity. In reality, it transforms loyal citizens into resistors and turns political disputes into existential crises.

The “Somaliland model” is cracking because its foundation—earned consent—is being eroded. Awdal has its own history and civic culture, but it shares with Sool the experience of being ignored, provoked, and then attacked when it speaks.

Goojacadde taught that you cannot bomb a people into loyalty. Borama now teaches that you cannot shoot your citizens into silence.

A Final Warning, Written in Blood

Sool was not lost because of clan politics. It was lost because of political arrogance and contempt for local will. Borama is not yet lost, but it is wounded—by the very government that claims to protect it.

The lesson is no longer subtle. It is screaming from the battlefields of Sool and the streets of Borama: A government that rules by imposition and fear is building its house on sand.

There is still time—to truly reform, to genuinely reconcile, to replace the barrel of a gun with the humility of dialogue. But if the same instincts that led to Goojacadde and Borama prevail, then Somaliland must be ready to face the consequences: a stability that collapses from within, defeated by its own hand.

——–

Support WAPMEN — the home of fearless, independent journalism that speaks truth to power across Somalia and the Horn of Africa.
Tel/WhatsApp: +252 90 703 4081.

By WDM Staff Writer

Introduction: A Voice Forged in the Crucible of State-Building

In the vast and fractured landscape of Somali political literature, few voices combine historical memory, administrative experience, and moral clarity as compellingly as Ismail H. Warsame. His writings—ranging from autobiographical reflections to sharp political essays—exist at the intersection of lived governance and philosophical inquiry. They seek not merely to describe Somalia’s dilemmas, but to understand why state-building has repeatedly faltered and what ethical foundations are required to restore national coherence.

Warsame speaks with authority not because he observed Somalia’s political evolution from afar, but because he helped shape it. As the first Chief of State (Chief of Cabinet) of Puntland during its inception in 1998, he participated directly in one of Somalia’s most durable experiments in political reconstruction. His insights therefore emerge not from abstraction, but from the difficult negotiations, institutional improvisations, and ethical tests inherent in founding a state under conditions of national collapse.

This chapter synthesizes the central pillars of Warsame’s intellectual project:

1. Leadership ethics as the bedrock of governance

2. Federalism as a tool misapplied

3. Puntland as a living experiment in institutional resilience

4. Writing as an act of political service

Together, these themes form a coherent blueprint for understanding Somalia’s governance failures—and the path toward remedy.

1. Leadership Ethics: Rebuilding the Moral Economy of Power

Warsame’s thought begins with a fundamental assertion: Somalia’s crisis is not structural, but ethical. Constitutions can be rewritten, institutions can be funded, elections can be organized—but none will function in the absence of leaders who possess integrity, courage, and restraint.

1.1 Integrity as the Foundation of Political Judgment

Warsame’s formulation is characteristically direct:
“Leadership begins with personal integrity; without it, every decision becomes a negotiation of convenience.”

Integrity, for him, is not a private virtue but a public necessity. It is the internal compass that transforms authority into stewardship. Somali leaders, he argues, too often treat power as a prize rather than a responsibility—a worldview that erodes state legitimacy at its core.

1.2 Accountability as the Bridge Between Authority and Trust

Warsame identifies accountability as the litmus test of credible leadership:
“A leader who fears accountability is already unfit to lead.”

Accountability is not merely administrative; it is the currency of public trust. In its absence, institutions become hollow façades—performing statehood without embodying it.

1.3 The Clan Question: The Ethical Threshold

Clan identity is an unavoidable part of Somali political life, but Warsame argues it must not dominate leadership:
“A leader who cannot rise above clan interests cannot rise to national responsibility.”

This is perhaps his most challenging contribution. He neither romanticizes clan structures nor demonizes them; instead, he frames them as ethical obstacles leaders must consciously transcend.

Warsame’s insistence on ethical leadership is not idealistic—it is profoundly pragmatic. No reform can succeed unless it is underpinned by a moral transformation of political behavior.

2. Somali Federalism: Promise Misunderstood, Practice Misapplied

Somalia’s federal experiment is one of the most contested political projects in East Africa. Warsame approaches it with realism: federalism is not inherently flawed; it is merely poorly interpreted.

2.1 Federalism in Theory: Decentralization as a Safeguard

Properly implemented, federalism aims to:

distribute power

strengthen local governance

reduce center-periphery tensions

balance autonomy with unity

Warsame acknowledges these virtues but stresses that they require institutional discipline and clarity—both lacking in Somalia’s political culture.

2.2 Federalism in Practice: A Distorted Application

Warsame identifies several structural distortions:

Clan-based state formation, which undermines administrative logic

Constitutional ambiguity, fueling perpetual disputes

Resource competition, transforming federalism into economic warfare

Weak national institutions, unable to mediate intergovernmental tension

His conclusion is incisive:
“Federalism is not a magic formula. It is a tool—and tools are only as good as the hands that use them.”

2.3 The Ethical Prerequisite of Federalism

For federalism to stabilize Somalia, Warsame argues, it must be grounded in:

political maturity

respect for constitutional boundaries

leaders committed to compromise

institutions shielded from clan capture

Without these ethical commitments, federalism becomes a mechanism for fragmentation rather than cohesion.

3. Puntland: A State Built in the Shadow of Collapse

No intellectual engagement with federal Somalia is complete without Puntland—the state Warsame helped construct and later critique.

3.1 Foundational Vision

Puntland emerged with three guiding ambitions:

1. Stability in the northeast

2. Institutional development capable of governing sustainably

3. A federal contribution to a future Somali republic

It was conceived not as a secessionist project but as a template for national reconstruction.

3.2 Achievements as Proof of Concept

Warsame highlights Puntland’s relative success:

functional security structures

a workable bureaucracy

regular political transitions

resilience against state collapse

These achievements demonstrate that institutional discipline—however imperfect—can emerge even in contexts of extreme fragility.

3.3 Risks and Drift from Founding Principles

Warsame is equally honest about Puntland’s vulnerabilities:

intensifying clan-political pressures

internal administrative fragmentation

disputes with Mogadishu

political personalization of power

He warns that Puntland’s durability is not guaranteed. States can drift into dysfunction when they forget the principles that created them.

3.4 Puntland as Federal Anchor

Warsame sees Puntland not as a perfect model but as a necessary one. Its success or failure will shape the trajectory of Somali federalism. It remains, in his view, the federation’s most important stabilizing actor—if it upholds its founding discipline.

4. Writing as Political Intervention

Warsame’s stylistic philosophy mirrors his political ethics: clarity, discipline, and purpose. His dictum—
“Write when you feel tired and hungry to kill verbosity and redundancy”
—reveals his rejection of inflated rhetoric in favor of precision.

4.1 The Nomadic Frame of Mind

His autobiographical book HAYAAN offers a portrait of a childhood shaped by:

movement

improvisation

environmental reading

community responsibility

These nomadic sensibilities permeate his political writing, giving it an instinctive awareness of shifting landscapes and emerging dangers.

4.2 Truth-Telling as Civic Duty

Warsame treats writing as an ethical commitment. His essays are interventions designed to reorient political discourse toward:

responsibility

integrity

institutional sobriety

He writes not for flattery but for correction. His truth-telling is a form of public service.

Conclusion: An Ethical Blueprint for a Broken State

Across his writings, Warsame articulates a coherent thesis: Somalia cannot rebuild its state without rebuilding its ethics.

Federalism, decentralization, and constitutional frameworks are necessary but insufficient. Without moral courage in leadership and disciplined governance, Somalia will continue to oscillate between crisis and paralysis.

Warsame’s work—rooted in experience, sharpened by reflection, and disciplined by nomadic pragmatism—offers one of the clearest intellectual pathways toward a functioning Somali state. It calls for nothing less than the reconstruction of Somalia’s political conscience.

In a political culture too familiar with cynicism, Warsame’s voice stands as a reminder that truth—courageously spoken—is the first act of state-building.

https://nordicmonitor.com/2025/12/turkish-intelligence-report-warns-somalias-fragility-as-ankara-boosts-military-and-economic-role/?s=09