By Abdiqani Haji Abdi

There are moments in Somali politics when a seemingly ordinary event reveals something far more profound about the state. President Said Abdullahi Deni’s overnight journey from Garowe to Galkayo is one of those moments.

Deni left Puntland’s capital during the night and traveled roughly 200 miles by road before arriving safely in Galkayo the following morning. On the surface, it was simply a presidential trip. But viewed against Somalia’s broader security landscape, the journey carries a significance that should not be overlooked.

A president traveling hundreds of miles by road, at night, across his own territory is not merely a logistical detail. It is a measure of territorial control. And it raises an uncomfortable question for Somalia’s national leadership: why is such mobility still possible in Puntland while it remains extraordinarily difficult across much of southern Somalia?

The Road Tells the Story

Somalia’s security debate is often dominated by statistics—territories captured, militants killed, military operations launched and international funds spent. But sometimes the simplest measure is the road.

Can a government move its president safely from one major city to another? Can civilians travel between towns without fearing checkpoints controlled by militants?

Can traders move their goods without paying illegal taxes? Can security forces move reinforcements without facing ambushes?

Can a national government exercise meaningful authority beyond the walls of its administrative capital?

These are not abstract questions. They are the practical definition of statehood. President Deni’s journey from Garowe to Galkayo demonstrates that, despite Puntland’s political and security challenges, its administration retains a significant degree of territorial mobility. That achievement should not be dismissed.

The situation in much of southern Somalia is dramatically different. For President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, traveling by road from Mogadishu to places such as Jowhar, Marka or Afgooye is not a routine presidential journey. Security considerations make such movements extraordinarily difficult, and senior federal officials depend heavily on air transport when traveling between major population centers.

The reason is obvious: Al-Shabaab continues to maintain influence across large rural areas and along important transportation corridors. The Federal Government may control Mogadishu and other major urban centers, but controlling a city is not the same as controlling the territory between cities.

That distinction is fundamental. A government that cannot guarantee the security of the road connecting its capital to another major city possesses formal authority—but limited practical reach.

Puntland Is Not Perfect

None of this means Puntland is free from insecurity. Puntland faces militant threats, political tensions, armed rivalries and periodic confrontations between competing security forces. The recent clashes in Galkayo are a reminder that the region has serious security problems of its own. But the comparison remains important.

Despite these challenges, Puntland has maintained security institutions capable of exercising authority in all its territory. Roads connecting major population centers remain sufficiently accessible to permit political leaders, security officials, businesses and ordinary citizens to move with considerably greater freedom than is possible in many parts of the south.

That difference has economic consequences as well. Security creates mobility. Mobility creates commerce. Commerce creates revenue. Revenue strengthens institutions. Insecurity reverses that cycle.

When roads become dangerous, markets become fragmented, transportation costs rise, investment declines, and government institutions struggle to extend services beyond urban centers.

The Real Test of Statehood

For decades, Somalia has measured state-building largely through institutions in Mogadishu: ministries, parliament, constitutional amendments, international conferences, and political agreements.

But statehood cannot be measured only from inside government buildings. It must be measured on the roads. A functioning state is one whose citizens can travel safely across its territory, whose security forces can move freely, whose businesses can operate without militant taxation, and whose government can reach communities outside major cities.

By that measure, Somalia’s biggest problem is not simply that Al-Shabaab exists. The deeper problem is that the state has struggled to replace the security and governance vacuum that allows the group to survive.

Rather than treating Puntland’s relative security as a political competition, Somalia’s Federal Government should study it as a governance lesson.

Puntland’s experience demonstrates that security cannot be created through military operations alone. It requires functioning local institutions, community relationships, territorial administration, security forces with clear chains of command, and a political environment in which local authorities have sufficient capacity to govern.

The Federal Government should therefore ask a more important question than who controls which political office:

Why can one Somali administration move its president hundreds of miles across its territory at night, while another struggles to move its leadership safely between neighboring cities?

That is the question that should dominate Somalia’s national security debate.

A Symbol Larger Than One Journey

President Deni’s arrival in Galkayo should therefore be viewed as more than another item on a presidential itinerary. It is a snapshot of two very different realities within the same country.

In one part of Somalia, a regional president can leave his capital at night and travel hundreds of miles by road. In another, the national leadership remains heavily dependent on aircraft to move between major cities because the roads connecting them cannot be reliably secured.

That contrast exposes the central weakness of Somalia’s state-building project. The country has spent billions of dollars and received decades of international military assistance. Yet in large parts of the south, the most basic measure of sovereignty—the freedom to move safely across one’s own territory—remains elusive.

Puntland’s relative security should not be romanticized, and its problems should not be ignored. But neither should its achievements be dismissed because they complicate the national political narrative.

If Somalia is serious about defeating Al-Shabaab and building a functioning federal state, it must learn to measure success not only by the number of military operations announced in Mogadishu, but by what happens on the roads outside the capital.

Because ultimately, the strength of a state is not demonstrated by how securely its leaders sit in their offices. It is demonstrated by how freely they can travel through the country they claim to govern.

This version deliberately uses Deni’s journey as the opening argument, rather than treating it as the main news event, and builds toward a broader critique of Somalia’s state capacity and security model.

Abdiqani Haji Abdi
Email: Hajiabdi0128@gmail.com