President Mustafe Omer’s recent interview with The Reporter offers an important window into how the current leadership of the Somali Regional State understands its record, priorities, and political direction. The interview is ambitious in scope. It speaks about peace, development, investment, public services, natural resources, elections, regional security, Somaliland, sea access, and the future role of the Prosperity Party. It is, therefore, not merely an interview about one administration’s achievements. It is a political statement about where the Somali Region has come from, where it stands today, and where its leadership believes it is heading.
There is no doubt that peace matters. For a region that has historically suffered from insecurity, underdevelopment, political exclusion, and deep social wounds, any serious effort to improve stability deserves recognition. Roads, schools, hospitals, water infrastructure, investment, and expanded public services are not small matters. They affect real lives. Communities that once measured governance mainly through security operations and suspicion naturally welcome visible development, improved mobility, access to services, and a greater sense of normalcy.
In that regard, the President’s emphasis on peace as the foundation of development is valid. No investor comes where insecurity dominates. No school functions properly where fear controls daily life. No hospital, road, or market can fully serve people where communities are constantly uncertain about tomorrow. The Somali Region needed peace, and it still needs peace.
But peace should never be understood only as the absence of armed conflict. Peace is also the presence of justice, trust, dignity, inclusion, accountability, and equal treatment before public institutions. A region may be calm on the surface while still carrying unresolved grievances underneath. A government may build infrastructure while still needing to strengthen political openness, public participation, and institutional accountability.
The President states that the Somali Region’s “only question is development.” This is a powerful phrase, but it is also a phrase that requires caution. Development is indeed a central question. But it cannot be the only question. For communities that have experienced historical marginalization, political trauma, displacement, drought, conflict, and exclusion, development is inseparable from justice, representation, rights, and voice.
People do not live by roads and buildings alone. They also live by confidence in institutions. They live by the freedom to speak without fear. They live by the assurance that public resources are used fairly, that opportunities are not captured by networks of loyalty, and that criticism is not treated as hostility.
Development without accountability risks becoming a story told from the top rather than a reality measured from below.
The interview presents impressive claims: expanded water schemes, new hospitals, schools, roads, agricultural investment, private-sector growth, and major expectations from natural gas and fertilizer projects. These are important developments, and where they have improved people’s lives, they deserve to be acknowledged. But they also deserve to be publicly documented, independently assessed, and measured against outcomes.
How many communities now have reliable water throughout the year? How many of the new schools have qualified teachers, learning materials, and safe environments for girls and children from pastoral communities? How many hospitals have adequate staff, medicine, equipment, and referral capacity? How much of the reported investment has created decent employment for ordinary people rather than simply benefiting politically connected actors?These questions are not attacks. They are the normal questions of responsible citizenship.
A confident administration should not fear scrutiny. In fact, the stronger the development record, the more open the government should be to independent assessment. Public achievements become more credible when they are supported by transparent data, citizen feedback, parliamentary oversight, media freedom, and space for civil society.
The Somali Region is vast, diverse, and complex. Its development needs cannot be captured by a single narrative. Urban growth in Jigjiga, improvements in main towns, or progress in selected investment corridors should not hide the continued struggles of pastoral and agro-pastoral communities living with drought, water scarcity, poor road access, livestock disease, market shocks, and climate-related displacement. The real test of development is not only what is visible in regional capitals, but what reaches remote communities during hard seasons.
The President also speaks strongly about political stability and opposition weakness. While stability is important, democracy requires more than the absence of serious challengers. It requires meaningful competition, credible elections, tolerant public debate, and institutions that protect dissent. A political environment where everyone agrees with the government is not necessarily a sign of contentment. Sometimes it may also reflect fear, fatigue, dependency, or lack of trust that criticism will be handled fairly.
The best way to prove that there is no public discontent is not to declare it. It is to allow citizens, journalists, opposition parties, elders, youth, women, professionals, and civil society actors to speak freely and organize peacefully.
The Somali Region has come through painful political chapters. Its people understand the cost of conflict more than most. For that reason, no responsible actor should romanticize instability or encourage a return to violence. But the rejection of violence should not be used to silence peaceful criticism. Supporting peace and demanding accountability are not contradictory. They are mutually reinforcing. A government that listens early avoids crisis later.
The interview also touches on natural gas, fertilizer production, electricity, and the promise of transforming the regional economy. These projects could indeed become major opportunities. But natural resources can be either a blessing or a source of grievance depending on how they are governed. Communities around resource areas must see real benefits, not only in law but in practice. Revenue sharing, local employment, environmental protection, compensation, consultation, and transparent contracting will determine whether these projects create shared prosperity or deepen mistrust.
The Somali Region should not simply become a place where resources are extracted. It must become a place where resource wealth builds human capital, climate resilience, local enterprise, and intergenerational opportunity.
The President’s recognition that the region was historically marginalized is important. However, overcoming marginalization requires more than inclusion in national economic plans. It requires strong regional institutions, fair federal-regional relations, respect for local voices, and development models that fit the realities of pastoral and borderland communities. The Somali Region’s future should not be imagined only through mega-projects and urban expansion, but also through resilient livelihoods, livestock markets, water systems, dryland agriculture, climate services, education, and peace across borders.
The interview’s broader national message also deserves attention. The President presents the Prosperity Party as a centrist force seeking to bridge extremes and strengthen national unity. Ethiopia certainly needs moderation, dialogue, constitutionalism, and peaceful political competition. But national unity cannot be built by rhetoric alone. It must be built through fairness, justice, credible institutions, and respect for Ethiopia’s diversity. Unity becomes meaningful when citizens feel protected, represented, and heard.
For the Somali Region, the challenge ahead is clear. The leadership should continue investing in development, but it should also widen the political space. It should celebrate achievements, but also accept criticism. It should protect peace, but also address grievances. It should attract investment, but also protect communities. It should speak about progress, but also publish evidence. It should promote regional pride, but also avoid treating dissenting voices as enemies.
President Mustafe’s interview is valuable because it sets out the government’s case in its own words. That case deserves to be heard. But the public also deserves a fuller conversation. Development is not a slogan. It is a lived experience. Peace is not a press statement. It is a daily relationship between citizens and the state. Leadership is not only about listing achievements. It is also about building trust, accepting responsibility, and allowing society to question power without fear.
The Somali Region has changed. That much is clear. The more important question is whether that change is deep, inclusive, accountable, and sustainable.
The region does not need a politics of permanent confrontation. Nor does it need a politics of unquestioned praise. It needs a mature public conversation where progress can be acknowledged, shortcomings can be named, and the future can be debated with dignity.
Development is welcome but development must walk beside justice, accountability, inclusion, and freedom. Only then can the peace dividend become a shared and lasting legacy for all people of the Somali Region.
Hussein is A Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability Professional based in Nairobi, Kenya