If you have been reading my pieces here on The Republic Blueprint over the last few months, none of what is happening right now should come as a surprise.

Since early March, I have laid out exactly how the Federal Government’s actions would lead to this moment. When the centre forced through a unilateral constitutional amendment on March 4th, I wrote in The Architecture of Crisis that you cannot govern a bifurcated nation by decree. I warned in The Constitutional Anchor that using the 2012 Provisional Constitution not as a sacred anchor, but as an obstacle to bypass, would inevitably destroy the trust required to hold our regions together.

Today, we are watching those predictions play out in real-time. The dangerous fiction that you can run Somalia from the centre - what I have consistently called the “Sledgehammer” approach - has reached its terminal limit.

The escalating crises unfolding across our nation are not isolated local disputes. Whether it’s the military subversion of regional governance in South West State or the armed provocations inside Puntland, these are the direct downstream consequences of a central government that has lost its way. When an administration abdicates its primary sovereign duty - national security - to focus all its energy on internal political dominance, this is the catastrophic output you get.

Let us be completely clear about the structural reality here. Puntland is not just another administrative province to be coerced by central overreach. It is the historic, foundational anchor of Somali federalism. For nearly three decades, while the rest of the nation struggled through institutional collapse, Puntland maintained uninterrupted administrative continuity. It secured critical maritime trade corridors and stood as our frontline defence against extremism.

Attempting to subvert Puntland’s established security structures through parallel recruitment, unauthorised deployments, or proxy militias isn’t “state-building.” It is an administrative coup.

We saw this exact destructive impulse play out in Baidoa. As I documented in The Stolen Transition, central military intervention was weaponised to force the collapse of a regional executive - an Inqilaab Maamul. I warned then that Puntland and Jubaland were watching carefully, knowing the same playbook could be prepared for Garowe and Kismayo. If the central apparatus truly believes that the sledgehammer is a viable tool for resolving constitutional disagreements, it will not achieve national unity. It will only accelerate the permanent fragmentation of the Somali Republic.

While politicians in the capital trade short-term manoeuvres over mandates and kuraas, our actual national sovereignty is being bargained away. Our borders face external overreach. As I cautioned in Beyond the Proxy Trap, our territory is being carved up by unilateral foreign arrangements, and the pending AUSSOM security transition is being turned into a dangerous playground for geopolitical rivalries. And perhaps most tragically, our counter-insurgency momentum has completely stalled because our finest security assets are being diverted to manage domestic rivals - a tragic misallocation of resources I flagged again just recently in Beyond the Truce.

We do not have to choose between central tyranny and total balkanisation. As I noted in The Ground Beneath Our Feet, our people are tired of this binary trap. The old playbook of total victory through central imposition is entirely exhausted, and the shouting match between localised factions offers no future. True statesmanship doesn’t mean managing a crisis after the dhiig flows; it means implementing an institutional framework that prevents the collapse in the first place.

As I argued in The Architecture of Our Survival, we need a National Reset. As a national leader rooted in our regional constituencies and cooperating with a broad spectrum of leaders across this country, I am delivering a clear, unshakeable blueprint to halt this slide into chaos:

• A Return to the True Constitutional Order: We must reject the dangerous illusion that a unilateral, contested review process constitutes a completed national compact. True constitutional legitimacy cannot be manufactured by executive decree or forced through a divided parliament; it requires a comprehensive, multi-regional consensus. We must return unconditionally to the 2012 Provisional Constitution as our only mutually agreed legal anchor. As I outlined in The Cost of the Sledgehammer, you cannot condemn the very foundation of a house and then expect the walls to stand. Any further evolution of our state's foundational text must flow from genuine federal consensus, not a central imposition masquerading as reform.

• The Preservation of Regional Security Anchors: The central government must immediately cease all tactical movements, parallel recruitments, and proxy interferences aimed at undermining the security commands of Federal Member States. As I proposed in The Federal Covenant, we must respect the inviolable periphery and practice security subsidiarity. Security within Puntland, for example, must remain strictly under the control of its own established institutions.

• A Pivot to Transitional Electoral Reality: We must abandon the illusion that a one-person-one-vote system can be forced overnight through executive diktat - a move I exposed as a smokescreen in Expired Mandates and the Sovietisation of the Republic. We must adopt a realistic, hybrid transitional model that progressively builds toward direct balloting while fully respecting the historical representation balances required to keep our regions stable.

Furthermore, we must secure the economic future of our regions. As I wrote in The Sovereign Economy and The Architecture of the Aftermath, capital is a coward; it flees from the uncertainty of midnight decrees. We need a decentralised economic zone, direct economic protections for our merchants, and a secure, direct payroll system that insulates the livelihoods of our frontline soldiers and civil servants from the political gridlock in the Capital.

The tools for a permanent, system-based National Reset are ready. We are actively organising a broad, unified national front to turn this consensus into an operational reality. The era of trying to govern our country through division and executive ego is over. It is time to stop fighting over a broken centralised model and start building a stable, sovereign Republic.

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The fragile quiet on the streets of Mogadishu over the last week is not peace. It is a frozen status quo. We have temporarily paused the immediate friction, but the structural engine of our statehood remains completely broken.

For years, our national conversation has been trapped in a loop, asking the same tired questions: Who occupies which office? How long is the extension? Which faction controls which district? The events of this month have proven that these are no longer political questions - they are structural liabilities. We are trying to run a complex, modern federation on an obsolete, centralised operating system that relies on a sledgehammer to maintain order. When the system crashes, the capital fractures, elite counter-insurgency units are diverted to manage internal political rivals, and the broader campaign for national security completely loses its momentum.

Look at the downstream consequences of this institutional paralysis. While politicians trade mortar fire over mandates in the capital, over 500 primary healthcare facilities across our regions have quietly closed due to systemic funding shortfalls. While we argue over personal extensions, our finest professionals - like FIFA referee Omar Artan - find their global achievements blocked at international borders because our state lacks the sovereign weight to protect its own diplomatic passports.

We do not need another backroom treaty. We need a system upgrade.

If we are to move past this mess, we must shift our focus from the politics of personalities to the pragmatism of institutional design.

My platform’s Third Way is a fresh blueprint designed to decouple the survival of the Somali people from the volatility of the political elite.

Here is how we build the next Republic:

• The Jurisdictional Firewall: We must structurally insulate public infrastructure from political standoffs. A child taking an exam in Garowe, a hospital operating in Jowhar, or a local transport corridor in Baidoa should legally and logistically sit behind an unbreakable firewall. Political deadlocks in Mogadishu should have zero mathematical capacity to freeze regional public services. Consensus is the baseline of our union, not a favour the centre grants.

• The Sovereign National Ledger: National defence and civil survival should never be held hostage by executive ego. We must transition our national payroll to a secure, decentralised digital ledger. When a frontline soldier puts their life on the line, their livelihood must be deposited directly into their account from a sovereign vault protected by constitutional law - completely bypassing the political middlemen in the capital.

• The Market Safe-Harbour: Capital is a coward; it flees the sound of gunfire and midnight decrees. Our merchants and global diaspora have built commercial empires across the world because they operated under the certainty of predictable contract law. We will implement a fixed National Commercial Code that provides absolute legal immunity to commerce, turning our local markets into safe harbours where investment is protected by institutions, not shifting political relationships.

We cannot fix a structural collapse with a rhetorical band-aid. The old playbook is entirely exhausted, and the street warfare of the past weeks has exposed its terminal limits. The tools for a National Reset are engineered and ready. It is time to stop negotiating our dysfunction and start building our future.

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The passing of the May 15th threshold was supposed to bring an end to the guessing game in Somali politics. Instead, we all watched the latest high-stakes attempt at dialogue in Mogadishu fall apart. Despite intense pressure from regional partners and international mediators, the three days of closed-door meetings ended without a single handshake.

To the outside world, this looks like the usual story of political stubbornness - a simple clash of egos over mandates and extensions. But those of us who are actively competing to lead this country out of this cycle know that the breakdown wasn’t tactical. It was entirely structural.

The talks didn’t fail because people ran out of time. They failed because the entire process was fundamentally broken from the start. And that is exactly why I am running for the Presidency of the Federal Republic: not to negotiate for a comfortable seat in a broken house, but to replace this exhausted way of doing business with a system that actually works.

The False Choice: Trading Seats for Systems

For months, the administration in Mogadishu has been operating under a dangerous delusion - the idea that you can bargain a stable country into existence inside a closed tent. Recent meetings have taken on the character of a property negotiation, focused on setting the terms by which power is allocated, rather than an honest effort to fix a fractured constitutional reality.

When central authority behaves like a sledgehammer - attempting to run a complex federation by unilateral decree, rewriting foundational laws without national consensus, and declaring new rules by executive fiat - it destroys the basic trust required to govern.

Last week, surrounded by elders, intellectuals, and young people at Masraxa Dookh in Garoowe, the collective anxiety in the room pointed to a truth that the latest collapse has laid bare: You cannot condemn the foundation and then try to paint the walls. The contradiction at the heart of the Mogadishu negotiations was always fatal. You cannot declare a central process illegitimate, reject unilateral rewrites of the constitution, and then sit down to negotiate an election built on top of those exact same rewrites. It makes no sense. If the map itself is wrong, no amount of international goodwill or political posturing will get you to the destination.

“Before we debate the next election, we have to make sure there is still a Republic left to govern. My candidacy is focused on exactly that: delivering a deep, permanent overhaul of our institutions so we can have a stable, legitimate transition of power.”

The Reality Behind the Deadlock

The collapse of the dialogue proves that a simple political pact between a few men in a room cannot fix the deeper cracks in the state. While everyone fights over timelines and extensions, the questions that actually matter to ordinary Somalis are completely ignored by the current leadership. These are the structural voids my platform is designed to address:

• Restoring our baseline: A negotiation without an agreed rulebook is just a shouting match. By drifting away from our shared social contract - the 2012 Provisional Constitution - the political leadership stepped into a legal vacuum. The 2012 framework is our protection. Bypassing it for temporary backroom deals just sets us up for the next crisis.

• Addressing the real economic issues: While we argue about dates and seats, the questions that actually matter to ordinary Somalis are completely ignored. Nobody is talking about Fiscal Federalism. Nobody is resolving how national resources actually reach a soldier in Galkayo, a teacher in Baidoa, or communities across the Somalia heartland. When power is treated as a personal prize rather than a system, the state stops working for its people.

• Building agreements that last: Any deal that relies entirely on the whims of a few individuals will fall apart the moment their personal interests change. Somalia doesn’t need a temporary breather between rivals; it needs a functioning system that stays standing no matter who wins the election and lives in the palace.

The Alternative: A Politics of Design

We cannot keep living through this exhausting cycle of expiring mandates, contested declarations, and midnight scrambles for artificial consensus. The sledgehammer approach has hit its limit. I am presenting myself in this upcoming election because I believe we need to shift from the politics of bitterness to the politics of design.

The solution isn’t to give a broken arrangement more time; it is to build a better system. My administration will focus on the practical, non-negotiable requirements for national survival:

• Real protections for the regions: We need legal and technical boundaries that permanently protect the autonomy of our Federal Member States from the constant volatility of the capital. The federation must work by law, not by permission.

• A secure national payroll: The livelihoods of our security forces and civil servants should never be held hostage by political gridlock. We need a transparent, digital ledger that pays our people directly, regardless of executive disputes.

• A dependable commercial code: Our business community and the global Diaspora need a safe harbour. They need to be able to bet their capital on a solid contract, not a political relationship.

The Spirit of 1943

As these talks were falling apart, our country marked the 83rd anniversary of the Somali Youth League and National Youth Day. Back in 1943, the 13 young founders of the SYL didn’t have an army or a massive treasury. What they had was a clear program. They had the maturity to put a functioning system ahead of personal ambition.

The political vacuum we are looking at today is not an accident of history; it is the direct result of bad choices. The failure of the closed-door meetings in Mogadishu is a clear sign that the old way of doing politics is over. The solution will not come from the centre alone. It has to be a national effort, drawing on the consensus-building traditions and the shared aspirations of all Somali communities.

I am ready to help secure an agreed path out of the transition and to compete for the trust of the Somali people. It is time to choose responsibility over noise, and stability over haste.

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I am writing this from Garowe.

For the past two weeks, I have stepped away from the noise to focus on the quiet, heavy labour of state-building. I did not go quiet because the crisis ended; I went quiet because we are less than 48 hours away from a constitutional threshold that will decide if we move forward as a unified nation or slide back into the friction of the past.

On May 15th, the legal mandate of the current administration reaches its limit. This is a fact of law, not a matter of opinion.

I have made no secret of my intention to run for the Presidency in the next election. I believe in a Somalia where leadership is earned through a vision of design, not through the exercise of a “Sledgehammer”.

But before we debate the next election, we must ensure there is still a Republic to govern. Today, my focus is on delivering the National Reset necessary to avert a systemic collapse.

Nationalising the Solution

While much of the political heat is concentrated in Mogadishu, I have come to our federal heartland to ensure that the solution to this crisis is a national one. Over the last few days, I have held a series of deep consultations with the people who actually hold this country together:

• Our Business Leaders: Who keep the markets breathing despite the uncertainty, and who deserve a “Safe Harbours” where their investments are protected by law rather than by political favours.

• Civil Society: The guardians of our social fabric who are tired of seeing the “Sledgehammer” used to crack our national foundations.

• Regional Stakeholders: Who understand that Federalism is not a threat to unity, but the very adhesive that keeps the Republic whole.

• The South West Community: Whose representatives here in Garowe remind us that our southern heartland is an indispensable pillar of our national survival.

The Choice: Sledgehammer or System?

We are at a crossroads. We have been offered a false choice for too long: a centralised decree that ignores our federal reality, or a disorganised chaos that threatens our security.

I reject both.

The “National Reset” we are discussing here is about building a system that outlasts any one leader. It is about ensuring the soldier is paid by the Republic, not a politician. It is about making sure our regional autonomy is guarded by constitutional safeguards that no decree can breach.

The Legacy of May 15th

It is no coincidence that this threshold falls on May 15th. This year marks the 83rd anniversary of the establishment of the Somali Youth League (SYL). Since its founding in 1943, this date has been recognised as Somali Youth Day, honouring the 13 young people who had the clarity to see a future that didn’t yet exist.

They didn’t sacrifice their lives for a seat in a tent; they fought for a Sovereign System. Our founding fathers didn’t leave us a legacy of personal decree; they left us a mission of national dignity. I am here to help finalise that labour.

May 15th is not a day for fear or for the politics of the street. It is our day of Institutional Renewal. I stand ready to compete for your trust in the election to come, but today my responsibility is clear: to ensure we remain a nation worth leading.

Waa la doogiye yaan la dacaroon. The recovery of our nation is a project for all of us, and the architecture of our peace is ready.

Guul iyo Gobanimo.

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Let’s be real for a moment. Most political talk in Somalia feels like a loop. We argue about mandates, we argue about seats, and meanwhile, the ground is shifting beneath us.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been watching the fallout of the “Sledgehammer” approach. We’ve seen the military setbacks in Jubaland and a heart-breaking displacement of over 50,000 people in Baidoa. It’s a painful reminder that when you try to replace a legal foundation with raw force, the house starts to crumble.

But while the headlines focus on the friction, I’ve been having a different kind of conversation.

I spent some time this week talking with Abdirahman Gelle (better known as Gelle Bashir). If you follow the digital space, you know Gelle. He’s the man who literally wrote the book on Somali blockchain and has been teaching thousands of our youth through his digital school.

I didn’t call him to talk about politics. I called him to talk about Trust.

Beyond the “Glitchy” Constitution

We spent a lot of time looking at the current rulebook being pushed - the 2026 Dastuur. To me, that document looks like a “design for control,” centralising power in a way that makes the whole system fragile. Gelle had a tech-native way of putting it:

“The current system is like running 2026 software on 1991 hardware. It’s designed to crash. What we need isn’t a bigger server in Mogadishu; we need a decentralised network where every region is a node that keeps the country alive.”

That’s exactly what I mean when I talk about the Federal Covenant and a Jurisdictional Firewall. We aren’t just “opposing” centralisation; we’re proposing a more stable, modern architecture.

Coding our Sovereignty

We dug into how this actually changes things for you:

• For the Merchants: Gelle’s work in crypto and fintech is the secret sauce for our National Commercial Code. Imagine a world where a merchant in Galkayo doesn’t need to worry about an arbitrary decree from Mogadishu changing the rules of the game mid-trade. That’s “Regulatory Certainty” in action.

• For the Soldiers: We talked about a Sovereign Payroll System. By using a transparent, digital ledger, we can ensure every soldier is paid directly to their phone, on time, every time. No middlemen. No political interference. That’s how you build a military that is loyal to the Republic, not a person.

Waa la doogiye yaan la dacaroon

The bitterness (Dacar) we see in politics today is a symptom of a dying system. But the “Doog” - that fresh green grass that follows the rain - is already growing in our tech hubs, our schools, and our markets.

The Third Way is about moving from the era of the “Sledgehammer” to the era of the Architect. We aren’t just asking for your vote; we’re inviting you to help us code the future.

The blueprints are open. Let’s get to work.

Nuradin Dirie

Inside the Workroom

Gelle Bashir and I spent hours talking about how “Trust Architecture” can actually change lives in Somalia. But a blueprint is only as good as the problems it solves for the people living in the house.

If we could digitise one government service tomorrow to end corruption, which one would you pick? Let’s talk in the comments.

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There is a specific kind of clarity that only comes when you stop talking and start listening.

Over the last several days, I have deliberately stepped away from the constant noise of the news cycle. I’ve spent my time in a series of quiet rooms, in long phone calls, and in deep consultations with colleagues I respect. I wasn’t looking for talking points; I was looking for the ground beneath our feet.

When a nation reaches a threshold like the one we crossed on April 14th, the air usually fills with shouting. Everyone has an opinion on “mandates” and “extensions.” But if you listen closely to the people who actually hold the Republic together - the merchants at the port, the mothers in the market, the elders in the regions - you hear something different.

You hear a quiet, persistent demand for stability.

What I’ve learned from these conversations is that our people are tired of being caught in a “binary trap.” They are tired of being told they must choose between a centre that tries to annex everything and a fragmented system that leaves us vulnerable to the wind.

They are looking for a Third Way.

It has become clear to me that we cannot fix our house while the roof is falling; we have to design the replacement structure. That is what I have been focused on during this period of silence. I have been working with a collective of dedicated leaders - patriots who believe that Somalia’s future shouldn’t be a gamble every four years.

We are focusing on the Architecture of the Transition. This isn’t about one person’s ambition. It’s about creating a system where the Law is the only occupant of the seat. It’s about building a “Jurisdictional Firewall” that protects the rights of our regions, ensuring our security is something we truly own, and giving our business community the “Regulatory Certainty” they need to invest in our children’s future.

April 14th was a reminder that authority is a trust with a fixed expiration date. In a Republic, when the time on the clock runs out, the trust returns to the Law.

The work we are doing in these “quiet rooms” is nearly finished. We are moving from the era of reaction to the era of design. I am looking forward to sharing the blueprints we have been working on very soon.

For now, I just wanted to share what I’ve been hearing. The foundation is being laid, and the path forward is clearer than it has ever been.

On April 14th, the Federal Parliament’s constitutional mandate expires. Thirty days after that, on May 15th, the President’s mandate follows.

I say this not to alarm - but because facts, stated plainly, matter. These dates are not political talking points. They are constitutional facts, written into the architecture of the Republic that Somali men and women bled to build. And it is precisely out of respect for that Republic - its institutions, its founding logic, its promise to this people - that what is unfolding before us cannot go unnamed

What is being presented to the Somali public as a democratic transition is, on honest examination, nothing of the sort. The military deployment into Baidoa. The rushed, uncoordinated rollout of an electoral process that no serious stakeholder agreed to, prepared for, or consented to. The manufactured urgency around a ‘One Person, One Vote’ framework that lacks the logistics, the legal consensus, and the institutional infrastructure to deliver a credible result. These are not the actions of a government secure in its legitimacy and confident in its democratic mandate. These are the actions of an administration that has watched its constitutional clock run down - and has chosen crisis over concession.

I have served this country long enough to recognise the pattern. And the Somali people deserve to have it named clearly, without theatre and without malice - but with absolute honesty.

A Crisis by Design

The architecture of what is happening is not difficult to understand, once you decide to look at it without illusion.

The executive branch has initiated a deeply contested, logistically unworkable electoral process in the final days before its legal authority expires. The intention is then to stand before this nation - and before the international partners - and declare: we cannot step down; the country is in the middle of an election.

This is not a constitutional argument. It is a constitutional evasion.

The chaos is not incidental - it is the instrument. By shattering the federal consensus that exists between Mogadishu and the member states, by making a legitimate transition appear impossible, the administration creates the very crisis it then uses to justify its continued presence.

I say this not with anger, but out of a necessary duty to the facts. A leader who engineers disorder to avoid accountability is not governing - he is retreating. And a retreat conducted at the expense of the Republic’s institutions is something that cannot go unnamed.

The Capture of the State

What concerns me more deeply - and what I believe will concern history - is not the extension itself, but the machinery being constructed to guarantee what comes after it.

The line between the Somali state and one political faction has not been blurred. It has been methodically dismantled. The national army, the federal budget, the instruments of public administration - these were entrusted to the executive to serve all Somalis. They are being deployed instead to install compliant administrations in the Federal Member States. These are not governing arrangements. They are captive voting structures.

The National Independent Electoral Commission - whose independence is the precondition of its entire purpose - has been staffed with loyalists and handed custody of the national voter registry.

When a single faction controls the treasury, commands the troops present at voting centres, and oversees the body that administers the election, what follows is not a democratic exercise. It is a ceremony of ratification for a decision already made.

History teaches us how republics fail. They rarely fall to a single dramatic blow. They are hollowed out, institution by institution, appointment by appointment, until the forms remain but the substance has quietly departed. That is the process unfolding before us - and we cannot afford to ignore it for the sake of diplomatic comfort

On the Question of International Support

I want to speak carefully here, because I have genuine respect for Somalia’s international partners and for the investment - financial and political - that many have made in this country’s future.

But respect requires honesty, and honesty requires me to say this plainly: international funding and external diplomatic silence cannot substitute for domestic constitutional legitimacy. They never have. They never will.

The language of universal suffrage - of ‘One Person, One Vote’ - is a language I believe in. It represents a destination I am committed to reaching for this country. But that language is currently being borrowed, not to advance democracy, but to extract foreign capital for a process designed to produce a predetermined outcome. Institutions and governments that underwrite this process in good faith, drawn in by the vocabulary of democratisation, will find that they have not advanced Somalia’s state-building. They will have helped to arrest it.

A mandate that has expired at home cannot be renewed abroad. And the Somali people - proud, patient, and clear-eyed - will not accept an electoral result that was engineered in the regions, administered by a captured commission, and validated in foreign capitals. That is not a prediction. It is a certainty.

What I Believe, and What I Stand For

A Republic is a covenant - between its founding principles, its institutions, and the people it exists to serve. It does not belong to the party that currently occupies its offices. It belongs to every Somali citizen, including those not yet born, who will inherit whatever we leave behind.

I stand for one thing above all: the absolute supremacy of the Constitution. The mandates expiring on April 15th and May 15th are not obstacles to be managed. They are the Constitution speaking. And the Constitution, in this Republic, is not a negotiating position.

The Co-Founders of this Republic will defend their jurisdictions. The Somali people will not accept a manufactured outcome. And I - as someone who intends to serve this country with the full weight of constitutional legitimacy behind me, and not a day before it - will continue to say so, in every forum, for as long as it needs to be said.

The era of ruling by extension, by occupation, and by institutional capture must end. What replaces it must be worthy of this country’s sacrifice and equal to its potential.

Somalia deserves better. And Somalia, I am certain, will demand it.

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For seven years, the people of South West State endured a heavy-handed, stagnant administration. The political opposition in Baidoa, alongside the diaspora, fought tirelessly for accountability, a democratic transition, and an end to an era of governance that failed to secure the region’s massive potential.

When that administration finally fell this week, the celebration in the streets of Baidoa was the natural, understandable exhale of a public desperate for change. The departure of the old guard was a historical necessity.

But we must look past the immediate relief and confront the structural reality of how this change was executed. The people of South West State were robbed of their democratic victory. Villa Somalia did not liberate Baidoa; they hijacked it. By deploying the national army to force a political outcome, the Federal Government executed an Administrative Coup (Inqilaab Maamul), stealing the transition from the rightful local opposition to install their own proxy.

The Hijacked Revolution

The smoking gun of this hijacked transition arrived yesterday. Rather than allowing local stakeholders and traditional elders to forge a consensus-based interim administration, the Federal Government bypassed the region entirely. The Prime Minister issued a decree appointing the Second Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic, Jibril Abdirashid Haji Abdi, to directly govern South West State.

You cannot call a military takeover a “popular local uprising” when the immediate result is direct occupation and rule by a federal cabinet minister.

Mogadishu recognised that the outgoing regional administration was weak and used that vulnerability as an excuse to militarily occupy a Federal Member State. They are not in Baidoa to hand power to the legitimate opposition; they are there to handpick a compliant caretaker who will rubber-stamp the 2026 electoral map for the centre. The local politicians who bled for seven years have simply traded a regional strongman for a federal occupier.

The Dangerous Precedent of the Gun

Replacing a flawed regional leader via a federal military invasion is how civil wars start, not how Republics are built.

Somalia is a Federal Republic. The provisional constitution dictates a clear distribution of power designed to prevent the trauma of the 1980s, where a centralised Mogadishu used the national army to subjugate the peripheries. By weaponising federal forces to dismantle a regional government, Villa Somalia has established a terrifying precedent: the centre will tolerate federalism only until it is militarily convenient to crush it.

If the national army can be used to settle a political dispute in Baidoa today, the Jurisdictional Firewall is broken. Puntland and Jubaland are watching carefully, knowing the same playbook is being prepared for Garowe and Kismayo.

The Security Vacuum

The timing of this internal assault is a strategic catastrophe. Somalia is currently navigating the highly sensitive AUSSOM transition. The international community is funding our national forces to secure the country against non-state actors.

Instead, those forces were redirected into a city sheltering 500,000 internally displaced persons to manage a manufactured political crisis. While federal troops occupy checkpoints in Baidoa to protect a federally appointed governor, the actual counter-terrorism frontlines are left exposed. Villa Somalia has prioritised domestic election-rigging over national survival.

Reclaiming the Mandate

To the political opposition in South West State: your fight was just, but your victory was stolen by the centre. Do not legitimise this military occupation by accepting token advisory roles in a proxy caretaker government.

We cannot rely on a central government that acts like a conquering empire, nor can we rely on an old guard who surrenders their mandates the moment their personal survival is threatened. The Somali people deserve a working state governed by institutions, not by the violent whims of whoever controls the capital’s armouries.

The fight for Baidoa’s physical ground may be over, but the fight to return the political destiny of South West State to its own people has just begun.

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