May God have mercy on its soul. That is what Somalis say at funerals. It is also the appropriate response to the political philosophy that governed Somalia for the last three years.
“Cidna looma joojinaayo” entered Somalia’s political vocabulary as a declaration of governing intent. The phrase means, simply, we will not stop for anyone. It was not merely a slogan. It described a philosophy: that momentum was preferable to consensus, that speed was preferable to inclusion, and that the political process would proceed on the centre’s terms regardless of who objected or what they said.
This was not merely aggressive. It was structurally incompatible with the system it was operating inside. Somalia’s federal democracy was built on the premise that no single centre could impose terms on the whole. The provisional constitution was provisional for a reason: consent had not yet been secured. It was a framework to build agreement around, not a mandate to be amended by whoever held power at the right moment. Understood in that light, cidna looma joojinaayo was not an expression of determination. It was a statement about how power would be exercised against the very architecture it was supposed to serve.
The record of what followed is not a matter of interpretation. Puntland, one of Somalia’s most administratively coherent federal member states, rejected the constitutional process and at points withheld recognition of the federal government entirely. Jubaland maintained its objections throughout. South West State, rather than being brought to agreement through negotiation, became the site of direct federal intervention enforced by armed force. The same dynamic is now emerging in Galmudug, where federal pressure over the regional leadership is generating the same resistance that preceded intervention elsewhere. Parliament’s four-year mandate expired on April 14, 2026, without an agreed electoral framework in place. The presidential term ended on May 15 over a disputed constitutional order. Each of these outcomes followed directly from the same governing logic: that objection was an obstacle to be overcome, not a signal to be heeded.
None of this arrived without notice. From 2023 onward, the United Nations, the African Union, and Somalia’s principal international partners called consistently and publicly for inclusivity and broad political consultation. The message was not occasional. It was sustained, it was documented, and it was consistent across institutions that rarely agree on anything. Federal member states raised the same concerns in parallel, not about the direction of reform but about the process through which it was being pursued. The trajectory did not change. A government that had declared it would not stop for anyone did not stop.
On June 1, 2026, the phrase met its answer. The embassies of the United Kingdom, the European Union, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Nations Mission to Somalia issued a joint statement calling on all sides to resume dialogue and reach consensus on an electoral roadmap. On the same day, the United States Bureau of African Affairs stated publicly that decisions taken without broad-based support will lack legitimacy and distract from pressing security challenges. A former United States Ambassador who served in Mogadishu wrote that the president had effectively been destroying Somalia’s federalism. Three separate actors, three separate channels, one unmistakable collective message: the politics of not stopping had run out of room.
The phrase is dead. The question is what replaces it. Genuine dialogue now requires more than a return to the table. It requires a return to the constitutional compact that the federal system was built on: one in which federal member states are participants in shaping the framework that governs them, not subjects of decisions made without them. It requires an electoral roadmap that all principal actors recognise as legitimate. And it requires the kind of inclusion that the international community has been calling for since 2023, not as an external condition, but as the internal logic of a federal system that cannot function without it.
The political philosophy of unstoppability has a consistent record. It does not end when it wins. It ends when the cost of continuing exceeds the cost of stopping. Somalia has now reached that point, confirmed not by its internal opposition but by the collective judgment of the international community that has sustained it for two decades. “Cidna looma joojinaayo” promised that nothing would stand in the way. In the end, everything did.
Awale Kullane is a Former Somali Ambassador to China and Sweden | Former Deputy Permanent Representative of Somalia to the United Nations | Former Chief of Staff and Permanent Secretary, Office of the Prime Minister of Somalia | Candidate for the Presidency of Galmudug State.