By Isha Qarsoon
Somalia is not a country at peace with itself but a state held hostage. It is not governed; it is captured. Power is not exercised as responsibility but hoarded as possession. Those who sit in office act less as leaders than as custodians of spoils, treating the state as something to carve up rather than something to build. The tragedy is not simply corruption or incompetence; it is capture for its own sake, conquest without ambition to create.
This capture plays out in endless rehearsals of politics disguised as governance. Every few months, a new communiqué is issued, a new agreement is announced, a new alliance is declared. On paper, they sound like progress — reconciliation, reform, even renewal. In reality, they are only the latest rounds in an old game.
Last month, the federal government issued one such communiqué, announcing that it had reached an understanding with some opposition figures. On paper, it sounded like reconciliation. It was presented as a step toward stability, a gesture of unity, a chance to put the country back on track. In truth, it was none of these things. It was simply another rehearsal in Somalia’s endless play, where elites bargain not to serve the people but to secure their share of tomorrow’s spoils.
Despite the constant friction, Somalia does not suffer from deep divisions; it suffers from a single unifying sickness. The men who claim to lead it, whether in Mogadishu, in the federal states, or scattered around the world as opposition leaders, share a single conviction. They are divided not by clan as much as they pretend, nor by ideology, nor even by the quarrels that dominate headlines. They are united by something deeper: the belief that public office is not a responsibility to serve the people but a possession to keep for themselves, like private property. They do not see government positions as a trust held on behalf of the public.
Instead of treating public office as a responsibility, Somali leaders hide behind security and self-congratulation. Ask anyone of them in power why Mogadishu floods each year or why government acts without consultation, and you are met with disbelief, as if you were speaking a foreign tongue. In their views, the idea that leaders should answer to citizens is absurd. They deflect such question with the same refrain: remember what Mogadishu used to look like? We have done a great job. Those seeking to replace them make hollow promises that everything will change once they are in power. Both responses are lies of convenience — one masking neglect behind the cloak of security, the other trading on hope — and together they ensure that responsibility is always deferred while privilege is always seized.
Politics in Somalia is not practiced as governance but as conquest. Unlike the conquerors of history, Somalia’s rulers carry no ambition to build. However brutal, past conquerors raised cities, wrote and implemented laws because they wanted their rule to endure. Somalia’s elites? They seek only to consume what already exists. While historic empires — from the Ottomans to the Romans — left institutions behind, Somalia’s elites seek no permanence. Heck, even some colonial powers left institutions in their wake. Somali elites preside with the haste of conquerors who know the house will soon collapse — and when you believe the house is collapsing, you take what you can while you can. The consequences of this neglect run through every institution. Ministries are treated as private fiefs, parliaments as marketplaces, the presidency as a chair of entitlement coveted only for the chance to command impunity.
One of the darker patterns of the conquest is the quiet disposal of public property. Land and buildings are sold in secret (or lately in the open), without parliamentary scrutiny, and the proceeds never touch the treasury. These sales are not meant to fund schools, hospitals, or security. Indeed, schools and universities occupy some of the targeted prime lands. Disposal of public properties is simply another channel by which the state is stripped for the benefit of a few. What is lost is not only the property itself but also the principle that government assets are held in trust for the people. When they are traded like private goods, it is the nation that is diminished.
From here, capture spreads outward, seeping into every corner of public life. Oversight posts are handed out for loyalty rather than competence, turning even the simplest duties of government into opportunities for abuse. Property tax collection is outsourced to connected firms that squeeze citizens instead of serving them. The abuse reaches into prisons, where men who have completed their sentences remain locked up if a powerful civilian wills it. Even the qat trade, instead of being transparently regulated, has been transformed into a half-billion-dollar franchise that enriches a handful while starving the treasury of both tax revenue and hard currency. These are only a few of the ways in which today’s conquerors exploit the nation.
And even the act of moving through your own city has been turned into a private toll. What should be the simplest expression of citizenship — the freedom to walk on public roads — has been seized and sold back as a commodity. Walk with a backpack through the KM4 checkpoint toward the airport and you may meet a firing squad — men with guns, not deployed by the state but by a private company. Sahal Transportation Company, shielded by — or perhaps owned by — the powerful, has converted that short stretch of road into its own fiefdom during flight hours (during daylight). For the price of a bus ticket — nine dollars for a single kilometer — Somalis are denied the right to carry their own luggage to the airport or to walk freely on public streets. The elites who allow this abuse ignore that many may not afford the fare, may prefer to walk, or would use cheaper options like bajaajs or taxis if allowed. Yet the very security cloak they rely on sustains Sahal’s monopoly: private vehicles and affordable rides are shut out so the cronies’ buses and private cars (as unlicensed taxis) can run, while those who try to bypass the system must pay bribes that often exceed the bus fare.
Once citizens are trapped between state neglect and private predation, those with guns follow the same path. Soldiers, poorly paid or not paid at all, look upward and see the elites treating the nation as the prize of power, They look around and see companies like Sahal preying on the public with impunity. Who, then, is stopping them from doing the same? They replicate the pattern at the checkpoint, on the road, in the village. The firing squad that blocks you at KM4 becomes the model for the gunman at every crossing. What begins as elite capture at the top is reproduced at the bottom as petty extortion by the armed forces. The man in uniform, meant to protect you and defend the country, becomes another toll collector. For ordinary Somalis, this is the most visible face of the system: the gun at the roadside, the bribe demanded before you pass, the humiliation that reminds you the state does not serve you but feeds on you.
The betrayal of federalism only deepens the wound. Born as a compromise after war, it was supposed to give Somalis confidence that power would not be centralized and abused. It promised communities autonomy, that the state would be a partnership rather than a prison. Instead, it has been twisted into another bargaining chip. States and the center trade loyalty for cash, influence for contracts, power for favors. None intend to honor its spirit. They manipulate it as another channel for extraction.
Even the rhetoric of clan has been emptied of meaning. Elites invoke it not to protect their people but to shield themselves, to justify betrayal, and to secure resources. It is the language of capture dressed as tradition. The ordinary Somali, who struggles daily without services or justice, sees little benefit in this endless chorus. Yet frustration rarely turns into resistance. For many, the capture of the state has become indistinguishable from the nature of government itself — an expected abuse, tolerated so long as the spoils are filtered through their kin. The silence is not consent, but it is paralysis, and it leaves the next generation to inherit a country where exploitation feels normal and accountability unimaginable.
This is why Somalia cannot defeat its enemies. Al-Shabaab is not stronger than the Somali people. It is only stronger than a state hollowed out from within. Territory is liberated only to be lost again, because rulers have no intent to govern what they reclaim. Villages are handed back with nothing to offer but neglect, and militants return as the only organized authority. The little security improvements the public has felt — fewer bombings in Mogadishu— came not because of Somali leaders but in spite of them. The security improvements were bought by international donors who poured billions into the Somali army and by foreign troops under AMISOM, ATMIS, and now AUSSOM. These gains were never anchored in Somali governance. They were rented from abroad. And now that foreign support is fading, the façade is cracking. Mogadishu lives on the edge, because the foundations that should have been built by its own leaders were never laid.
Public Paralysis
What is most unsettling is how the public has adapted to this capture. Over time, it has come to look like governance itself. People know the state is not working for them, but they no longer know how or where to direct their anger. Frustration exists but finds no channel. Anger simmers as private complaint, not collective demand. And clan loyalty acts like a sedative, dulling outrage so long as one’s own kin are in the house of spoils.
In this way, the public becomes both victim and participant. Many shrug and say, this is simply how things are done. Some take comfort in seeing their clansmen among the elite and accept the failures that follow. Others sense that something is wrong and even long for the security of the old military regime, forgetting that it ruled through force and left many communities scarred by its brutality. What the public lives with today is the capture of the state, disguised as ordinary government, where silence hardens into complicity. Caught in a mix of resignation, confusion, and clan tolerance, the public can no longer say with certainty whose country Somalia truly is. The elites behave as if it belongs to them alone, while the people endure as if it belongs to someone else.
The Burden of the Youth
No one should expect that anything will change when power is handed over in the next term. The same formula will be applied, because the formula itself has become the system. What looks like succession is only rotation. For the elites, this game ensures safe retirement, with comfortable lives funded by the privileges they enjoyed. But for the youth and for anyone desiring to remain in the country, it is not comfort that is inherited — it is the mess, the decay, and the debt of a state that was never truly governed.
This is why the burden of addressing Somalia’s governance crisis falls primarily on the youth. They cannot expect the elites to transform the nation or leave behind a functioning country, for the elites have no incentive to do so. They cannot mistake rotation for renewal. If Somalia’s course is to change, it will not come through another elite bargain but through a generation that refuses the formula altogether — a generation that sheds the clan elixir, sees power not as property but as responsibility, and the Constitution not as something to bend but as something to uphold. Until the youth find their voice, the answer to the question — Whose country is it anyway? — will remain unknowable.
Isha Qarsoon
Email: Ishaqarsoon1@gmail.com
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Isha Qarsoon- is a platform dedicated to addressing critical issues pertaining to good governance, corruption, and social challenges. It emphasizes investigative journalism as a means to uncover and disseminate information, enabling the public to engage with and understand the realities of the country. Through its focus on transparency and accountability, the forum aims to foster informed public discourse and contribute to societal awareness and reform