If we are finally running our own country, we have to stop treating consensus like an obstacle.
In just a few days, the United Nations political mission in Somalia officially wraps up.
After decades of external referees, special representatives, and endless communiqués drafted in hotel ballrooms, Somalia is now said to be fully in charge of its own house. Every Somali ought to welcome that. We have carried the weight of foreign oversight for far too long.
Yet real independence isn’t about watching the last UN flight take off from Aden Adde International Airport. It is about whether we can sit in a room together and settle our own arguments without reaching for heavy weapons or running to foreign capitals.
Looking at Mogadishu this week, it is hard to say we are passing that test.
Instead of steadying the ship, we have seen electoral dates dropped out of thin air, soldiers deployed around the homes of former leaders, and speeches from the highest office telling the country that consultation is fine, but the decision is already made.
That is not how a federation works.
We didn’t sit down in 2012 to write a constitution just so a future president could treat the rest of the republic like an advisory board. The entire point of that document – the reason people compromised on it in the first place – was to ensure that no single group, faction or officeholder could ever take the steering wheel and lock everyone else in the back.
Now, there is talk of an opposition dialogue forum in mid-November.
I don’t know any serious person who would turn down an honest conversation about Somalia’s future. Dialogue is always better than a standoff. But let’s be candid with one another: inviting people to a meeting just to give a stamp of approval to rules you already wrote in secret isn’t dialogue. It’s performance.
If this November gathering is going to be anything more than a photo opportunity while the country slides closer to the edge, a few basic things have to be clear before anyone sits down:
First, you cannot invite leaders to discuss an election if the rules and the calendar are treated as off-limits. You cannot demand that people show up while pretending that major member states aren’t completely alienated, or while the legality of the entire process is sitting before the Supreme Court. A real meeting has to have the courage to put the 2012 baseline back on the table and find an agreement that every part of this country can live with.
Second, the security forces have to be taken out of the political equation. The moment you surround a political rival’s house with state troops or use intelligence units to settle political scores, you kill the trust required to hold an election. We need a clear, joint understanding that our armed forces belong to the Somali nation, not to the incumbent of the day.
And third, we have to stop pretending that setting dates on paper is the same thing as holding an election. If you cannot safely run a polling station across entire regions, or if half the federal states refuse to participate in your commission, pushing ahead regardless doesn’t prove strength. It just creates an institutional breakdown that ordinary citizens will have to pay for.
To the administration in Villa Somalia: true authority doesn’t come from forcing people into a corner. It comes from having the patience to build a compact that outlasts your time in office.
And to my fellow leaders in the opposition: staying outside the room and waiting for things to fall apart is not a strategy. We have an obligation to show up, but to show up with a united, sensible plan that protects the rules of the republic rather than just our own immediate interests.
We have a rare chance to prove that we can govern ourselves without someone else holding our hands. Let’s not waste it on another manufactured crisis.
By:Nuradin Dirie
