Anyone who has carried the weight of public responsibility in Somalia knows that our political life is rarely straightforward. In recent days, many of our colleagues and contemporaries across the national leadership have sat down together in Mogadishu to try to work through the mechanics of our upcoming transition.
That effort matters. Sitting across a table will always be better than shouting from behind barricades, and seeking common ground is the primary duty of anyone who claims to lead in this country.
Yet, those of us who have walked this path know the peculiar burden of Somali statecraft: Somalia is perhaps the only country where a presidential candidate’s campaign includes the task of ensuring that the election itself is held.
In mature democracies, the calendar is an article of faith. Candidates debate policies, present economic visions, and contest ideas while institutions quietly deliver the vote. In our theatre, before an aspiring leader can present a platform to the people, they must first spend political capital, assemble diplomatic coalitions, and wage exhausting procedural battles simply to guarantee that a legitimate ballot takes place at all.
This reality explains why we cannot look away when events threaten to destabilise that fragile horizon.
The deeply unsettling incident at the residence of General Mahad Abdirahman Aden (“Shub”) in Doolow has cast a long shadow over our collective efforts. As debate continues over the circumstances surrounding the explosion, the broader lesson should not be lost: whenever questions arise about the intersection of military power and domestic political competition, political leaders have a duty to pause and reflect.
Statecraft is not merely about navigating the pressures of the moment or agreeing to interim arrangements; it is about upholding the safeguards and conventions that prevent political disagreements from endangering the state itself.
Protecting What We Have Built Together
Somalia’s security partnerships have taken years of sacrifice to construct. Our soldiers in the Somali National Army, alongside vital international allies – including the Republic of Türkiye – have shed blood to give our children a chance to live without fear of terrorism.
Because these partnerships are essential to our survival as a nation, we cannot allow them to become fodder for domestic factionalism.
The conflicting narratives coming out of Doolow – allegations of targeted strikes on one side, denials and claims of internal explosions on the other – harm everyone. They erode trust between our communities, between our regional administrations, and between our state and the allies who have stood by us in our darkest hours.
True leadership does not seek to score partisan points off such moments. True leadership demands institutional clarity:
- Independent Fact-Finding: A transparent, joint inquiry to establish the facts in Doolow, clearing the air before suspicion hardens into permanent grievance.
- Operational Integrity: An ironclad institutional boundary ensuring that sovereign defence assets and bilateral military assistance remain strictly focused on our common adversary: violent extremism.
- Constitutional Custody: A shared, binding consensus that the security forces belong to the Somali Republic, not to any office, faction, or political dispute.
If we fail to protect our armed forces from political crossfire, we will dismantle from within what our adversaries could never defeat on the battlefield.
The Pillars of an Enduring Covenant
As those of us across the political spectrum contemplate the road ahead, we need to ask ourselves honest questions. What makes a political transition hold? What turns a transition agreement from a temporary truce into enduring statehood?
Three practical truths must anchor our collective thinking:
1. Transition Security Must Be Impartial
No politician, candidate, or citizen can fully engage in a democratic process if they fear that state machinery can be turned against them. For any electoral roadmap to work, operational security command during the transition must be depoliticised and placed under a credible, multi-stakeholder oversight structure. When security is trusted, political courage becomes possible.
2. Grounding Our Steps in Common Law
Legitimacy is not something an administration can manufacture overnight. Until a genuine, nationwide constitutional review is completed through inclusive consensus (Wada-tashi) that brings every Federal Member State along, the 2012 Provisional Constitution remains our only negotiated baseline. We must stay tethered to the ground we have already agreed upon.
3. Honouring Technical Reality Over Symbolic Deadlines
There is always an understandable urge to promise fast elections in six or seven months to reassure the public and international partners. But an arbitrary deadline that ignores operational readiness only sets us up for disappointment. Our transition should be measured by concrete milestones: verified dispute mechanisms, secure polling logistics, and accredited administrative capacity. Setting realistic benchmarks is not delay; it is respect for the integrity of the process.
A Common Responsibility
No single group or faction holds the answers to Somalia’s future. The state is our shared inheritance.
Those who are currently sitting at the drafting table carry our goodwill. But the rest of us in national leadership also carry an obligation: to remind the nation that peace cannot be sustained by paper alone. It requires an institutional covenant where the rule of law precedes power, where force is never a substitute for dialogue, and where national trust is treated as our most vital resource.
Somalia’s best days will not come from one side subduing the other. They will come when we build institutions strong enough to outlast all of us.