By Abdisaid M. Ali

Somalia’s social contract did not collapse overnight. It weakened gradually as constitutional restraint gave way to discretion and the rules meant to bind power in Mogadishu became negotiable. In fragile political orders, legitimacy rests less on ambition than on credible limits. Once those limits loosen, trust drains quickly and politics hardens, not because actors become unreasonable, but because the system no longer feels reliable.

The Provisional Constitution was conceived as a compact among political equals emerging from state collapse. Its core purpose was restraint: to divide authority, reassure regional actors, and rebuild confidence step by step. That logic has steadily weakened. Political authority has increasingly concentrated in Mogadishu, not only through institutions but through the personalization of power around Villa Somalia. Decision-making meant to be distributed across parliament, federal forums, and independent bodies has narrowed into the executive, mediated more by access and loyalty than by process and consent. As authority centralizes, institutions lose their binding power. Oversight loses force, parliament reacts rather than legislates, and federal bargaining becomes procedural rather than substantive.

In this setting, debates over federalism and confederation are often miscast as a moral contest between unity and fragmentation. That framing misses the central question: whether Somalia retains a political order capable of limiting power and managing conflict. I return to this issue deliberately, following my earlier piece on WardheerNews, “Puntland at a Forced Political Crossroads,” because critical issues were left unexplored and important questions remain unanswered. The issue is not whether Somalia should remain united, but what kind of political settlement can realistically hold in a country where power is uneven, institutions are weak, and disagreement easily becomes existential. From this perspective, Puntland’s interest in a confederal arrangement is not a rejection of Somalia, but an effort to preserve unity without repeating the structural failures that have steadily drained trust between the center and the states.

To understand why this concentration of authority is so destabilizing, it helps to think in terms of political settlements. A political settlement sits beneath constitutions and peace agreements. It is the lived understanding that orders power in practice: who decides, who can block, which rules carry weight, and why authority is accepted. For such an order to hold, it must also contain a margin of safety. Political systems need slack to absorb error, delay, and disagreement without turning each test into a crisis. When authority, elite incentives, enforcement, and public acceptance align, institutions begin to discipline behavior. When they do not, and the system has little capacity to absorb strain, small failures cascade into system-wide shocks.

Somalia’s central problem is that its underlying settlement remains broad and dispersed, while constitutional practice has narrowed toward concentration at the center. Real authority and legitimacy still reside with regional administrations, locally trusted security forces, business networks, and everyday governance systems. Yet recognition, access to external resources, and diplomatic attention increasingly gravitate toward Mogadishu. Authority concentrates while safeguards remain weak. This configuration is structurally vulnerable because it leaves no room to absorb error.

Nowhere is this clearer than in relations between the federal government and Puntland and Somaliland. The center asserts national authority, but too often without the restraint, shared responsibility, or predictable rules that make such political authority credible. Power accumulates at the top, while buffers remain limited. As a result, routine disagreements escalate because the system lacks the capacity to contain strain.

Puntland’s relative stability reflects a different logic. Authority, security command, and fiscal responsibility are aligned locally, anchoring legitimacy in delivery and restraint. Disputes are managed where they arise rather than transmitted upward as national crises. Conflict is not eliminated, but its effects are contained. This alignment provides the margin of safety that allows political order to hold under pressure.

Somaliland has followed a similar path over a longer period. For more than three decades, it has governed itself as a functioning political order. Any credible path back to unity must begin from that reality. The question is not whether Somaliland can administer itself, but whether Somalia can offer a shared framework that feels safe to enter and strong enough to last. Reasserting a center that lacks both reach and restraint has already failed. Repeating it will only harden separation.

In both cases, the issue is not autonomy versus unity, but whether political authority is matched with responsibility and restraint is embedded in the system. Where central discretion replaces rule-bound coordination, even minor frictions become existential. When a political system has no margin for error, minor failures become national crises. Legitimacy is earned less by constitutional text than by lived order: safety, predictability, and restraint in the exercise of power.

Security coordination exposes these weaknesses most clearly. Fragmented authority combined with centralized discretion removes fallback options. When coordination fails at the center, there is no buffer below. Puntland’s campaign against Daesh in the Cal-Miskaat mountains made this visible. Intelligence, terrain knowledge, and sustained logistics were carried almost entirely at the local level, without integrated command or a nationally owned strategy. In fragile political orders, such signals matter. They reveal where responsibility actually lies.

Over time, this produces predictable behavior. Cooperation becomes conditional rather than dependable, not out of defiance, but because the system offers no assurance that authority and responsibility will move together. Where enforceable limits are absent, disagreement ceases to be containable.

Comparative experience reinforces this lesson. Durable political orders are built with buffers against failure, not assumptions of perfection. Early modern Europe consolidated through extended confederal phases that dispersed risk across provinces before authority centralized. The Dutch Republic coordinated defense and trade while sovereignty remained with its provinces. Switzerland transformed cantonal autonomy into a permanent shock absorber. The early American union deliberately limited the center until trust and capacity matured. Even classical Islamic governance relied on layered authority and delegated administration to prevent local failure from threatening the core. In each case, unity endured because systems were designed to absorb strain.

Confederation responds directly to Somalia’s political settlement as it exists today by restoring margin of safety to the system. It disperses authority, clarifies responsibility, and limits central discretion so that error does not become existential. Sovereignty remains primarily with constituent political communities, while the center is confined to clearly defined coordinating functions exercised by consent. This lowers the cost of failure, reduces the incentive to capture the center, and keeps shocks local rather than systemic.

Somalia’s problem isn’t a shortage of ambition. It’s the growing distance between what the constitution promises and how power actually works on the ground. Political systems hold together when those who wield authority also carry responsibility, when restraint is real, and when institutions are built to handle mistakes without turning them into crises.

Confederation offers a disciplined way to restore that balance. It aligns law with lived authority, embeds restraint into structure, and allows unity to hold under conditions of division and uncertainty. It is not an end state, but a stabilizing phase that preserves cohesion while keeping consolidation possible as institutions and trust mature. The real danger isn’t in facing these realities head on. It’s in pretending they don’t exist and trying to govern as if nothing has changed.

International partners carry direct responsibility in this landscape. Aid, security cooperation, and diplomatic recognition do not sit outside Somalia’s political settlement; they shape it. When external actors empower Villa Somalia without enforcing responsibility and accountability, they entrench personalization rather than strengthen institutions. When they channel resources through the center while bypassing functioning subnational authorities, they weaken legitimacy where it actually exists. A settlement-aware approach requires aligning support with verifiable security delivery, rule-bound fiscal arrangements, and consent-based coordination across the federation.

Puntland’s position is therefore not parochial. It reflects a hard lesson from state collapse: unity survives only when political systems are built to absorb strain. In fragile societies, ambition without buffers breaks under pressure. What holds is a framework that allows for error, disagreement, and adjustment without turning every shock into a national crisis. Confederation provides that margin of safety. It matches power with responsibility, builds legitimacy through real results, and places clear limits on how authority is used. This is not a retreat from unity, but a practical way to protect it. For Somalia as it exists today, confederation is not ideology. It is the most realistic path to keeping the union intact while leaving room for a stronger state to emerge over time.

Abdisaid M. Ali
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Abdisaid is the chairperson of Lomé Peace and Security Forum, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and Former National Security Advisor, Somalia. X account @4rukun. 
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