By Anwar Maxamed Diiriye

Rag waxaan ku maamuli aqaan, ama ku maamuusi.
Mase inaanu nahay oo tolnimo, meerto noo tahaye
Masallaha ninkaan ii dhigayn, midig ma saaraayo,
Ninkii aniga iga maarmi kara, uma muraadyeesho.
– Saahid Qamaan

I know how to rule with dignity and how to bestow honor with grace.
Since we are bound by blood and kinship,
that tie moves in circles and returns to us both.
By God, I will not extend my right hand
to one who neither respects nor acknowledges my presence.
And whoever believes he can do without me,
I do not pursue him, nor do I desire him.

When we read these lines by Saahid Qamaan, we are not merely reading poetry; we are confronting ourselves. The poem speaks of dignity, restraint, and mutual respect. It teaches us that leadership is first a moral discipline before it is political authority. A leader who cannot preserve dignity cannot preserve a nation.

Yet today, in our daily politics, leaders publicly disrespect one another as if humiliation were a governing strategy. Centrally positioned leaders dehumanize state leaders, and in return, state leaders openly defy the center. Federal and state authorities behave less like partners in a national project and more like rivals in a permanent contest. Every new leader at the federal or state level often refuses to continue any good progress made by his predecessor. Instead, he declares, implicitly or explicitly, “I alone am the Amir; I know all.” This arrogance severs continuity, weakens institutions, and disconnects leadership from the common interest. The greatest losers in this rivalry are not the politicians. It is our nation and our citizens.

Why this culture of rupture persists is a debate for another day. But its roots lie deep within what I call the curse of borrowed governance.

The relationship between borrowed governance and moral decay lies in the disconnection between structure and soul. Since independence in 1960, Somalia adopted externally designed political systems. First came Western-style parliamentary democracy inherited from colonial administrations. Then came scientific socialism under Siyaad Barre and his military junta after the 1969 coup. Later, after state collapse and civil war, we embraced a federal system shaped significantly by international state-building frameworks. Each system arrived pre-packaged, carrying its own assumptions, philosophies, and institutional habits.

We adopted them quickly and blindly, without fully understanding or deeply adapting them. When Somalia united on 1 July 1960, merging former British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland, we inherited extraordinary hope. One language. One religion. One people. We believed unity itself would guarantee stability. Yet we accepted a Western parliamentary model shaped by different historical experiences. We treated it like a sophisticated machine delivered to our home, but we never fully studied the manual. It fit those who created it. It was never fully harmonized with us.

We did not meaningfully integrate it with xeer, our indigenous system rooted in negotiation, collective responsibility, and moral accountability. Nor did we reconcile centralized bureaucracy with our tradition of decentralized consultation, where every individual carries a sense of dignity and voice through shir and the authority of elders. The result was imitation without integration.

Between 1960 and 1969, civilian governance functioned in a formal manner. Elections were held, cabinets were formed, and parliamentary debates took place. However, political parties increasingly reflected clan alignments or symbiotic alliances rather than coherent national programs. Patronage overshadowed policy, and public office became an instrument of negotiation rather than development. As our late scholar Maxamed Daahir Afrax once argued, a pseudo-civilization mentality began to overtake the moral and ethical senses of our leaders, weakening their basic understanding of modern politics and civics. As a result, public trust gradually eroded.

After the assassination of President Cabdirashiid Cali Sharmaarke on October 15, 1969, in Laascaanood, while he was performing his annual national tour, the fragile civilian order collapsed. The military seized power under the command of the late Siyaad Barre and his military junta. Early reforms generated widespread optimism. The adoption of the Latin script in 1972 standardized the Somali language in written form and strengthened national cohesion. Literacy campaigns expanded across the country, and infrastructure projects advanced. During the Dabadheer famine of 1974–1975, the state mobilized large-scale relief efforts; Somalis, and soldiers, often remembered for their distinctive blue eyes (Russians), deployed helicopters and heavy trucks to relocate affected populations and deliver assistance. The crisis was managed with relative effectiveness and organizational efficiency.

At the same time, the Somali people were strategically and tactically mobilized for nation-building efforts, actively participating in the construction of schools, hospitals, orientation centers, and other government institutions across the country.

Yet authoritarian centralization replaced pluralism. Consultation gave way to command. Loyalty replaced merit. Fear replaced participation. Institutions hollowed out. When accountability becomes impossible, collapse becomes inevitable. In 1991, the state disintegrated.

The collapse did not immediately produce renewal. It produced civil war and fragmentation. Ministries were looted. Ports became militia revenue sources. Leadership came to mean access: access to territory, access to weapons, access to income. Killing, raping, and looting normalized. Trust evaporated.

Since 2004, slow reconstruction efforts have rebuilt formal, though still fragile, institutions. A Federal Government was established, financial systems improved, and some taxation began to be

collected, although the transparency and proper use of those revenues remain a serious question. Somalia achieved debt relief in 2023. Yet the system of governance is still not fully understood or internalized, and corruption persists in evolving and adaptive forms.

Here we must speak clearly. When leaders enter office empty handed and leave with unexplained wealth, that is not intelligence. It is theft. It is betrayal. It is moral failure. It is theft from the orphan, the unemployed, the struggling mother, and the pastoralist and farmers facing drought.

And the public bears responsibility too. We cannot whisper anger in private gatherings while applauding looters in public ceremonies. If leaders loot public assets and we respond with silence, clan protection, or even admiration, we normalize corruption. If theft brings prestige, theft will multiply.

We must condemn the looters. We must shame the looters. Not through chaos, but through moral clarity, civic pressure, investigative scrutiny, and lawful accountability. Corruption must carry social disgrace, not honor. A leader who steals public wealth should not be celebrated at weddings or praised on platforms. If we combine looting with dignity and titles, looting will never stop. Eventually, we will not only lose money. We will lose our country in our hearts.

The deeper curse of borrowed governance is both structural and moral. We centralized authority in a culture historically grounded in consultation. We tried to balance clans but neglected merit. We imported frameworks without reconciling them with our indigenous ethos. Institutions became mechanical. Mechanical systems fracture under pressure.

Leadership in our daily politics reflects this moral erosion. Public insults among leaders have become normalized. Rivalry overshadows responsibility. The center undermines the states, and the states undermine the center. New administrations erase previous progress for the sake of ego. Continuity disappears. Governance becomes spectacle rather than service. Do we deserve this? No!

Yet governance traditions are not foreign to us. For centuries, Somali society governed itself through xeer and faith. Elders led because they were trusted. Authority was moral before it was bureaucratic. Even after state collapse, hybrid models in places like Somaliland and Puntland demonstrated that culturally grounded governance can restore relative stability.

The Way Forward

The solution is not isolation; it is intelligent integration. Federalism must be genuinely understood, not merely adopted in form. Islamic jurists, experts in customary law, and well-educated scholars of international constitution law should be entrusted to carefully examine it, sift through its provisions, and identify what clearly aligns with our values and realities. What is compatible with our faith and social fabric should be consciously adopted and harmonized with our indigenous systems. Authority must be meaningfully decentralized so that what can be governed locally is not unnecessarily centralized at the center.

Xeer and our faith must be integrated with constitutional governance, not treated as inferior, symbolic, or parallel frameworks. Merit must replace favoritism. The principle of Karti iyo

Hufnaan, championed by our late former premier Cabdirizaaq Xaaji Xuseen, must guide public appointments and institutional leadership. Transparency should be institutionalized through digital systems, open budgets, and accessible public reporting. Oversight bodies must function independently, free from political interference and intimidation.

Finally, citizens must be educated about their Constitution, their rights, and their responsibilities through open public forums, community discussions, radio programs, educational curricula, and digital platforms. An informed citizenry is the strongest safeguard against corruption, authoritarianism, and moral decay.

Somali business leaders in the diaspora must also reconsider their role. Building foreign lands while neglecting our own is like pouring effort into an abyss. It may create private wealth, but it does not create national strength. Investment, job creation, and reintegration at home are nation-building acts. When youth find opportunity at home, they will not risk deserts and oceans for dignity.

Civic education must reconnect faith, ethics, and governance. Public office must once again be understood as ammaana, sacred trust. Leadership must be measured by service, not noise; by foresight, not arrogance.

Conclusion

The curse of borrowed governance is not destiny. It is the cumulative result of structural mismatch, moral neglect, public tolerance of corruption, and the intellectual laziness of Somali leaders and scholars who failed to rigorously study and understand imported systems. First must come our faith and our principles, and then, with clarity and confidence, we take from external systems only what aligns with our values and serves our realities, leaving behind what does not fit.

If we continue importing systems without adaptation, centralizing without consultation, appointing without merit, tolerating corruption, and honoring those who loot public wealth, the vicious cycle will repeat. In time, God forbid, future generations may come to see this dysfunction not as failure but as inevitability, almost like a sacred verse or cultural pillar, rather than a deviation from Islam, justice, responsibility, and moral righteousness.

But renewal is not simple, but possible. The curse will end when we rethink our system of governance, reform it wisely, use it responsibly, stop honoring corruption, expose and shame theft, protect what is sacred, restore dignity to leadership, and return to the guidance of our Almighty Allah. As Saahid Qamaan reminds us, dignity is strength. Respect is power. Integrity is leadership.

Successful leaders have a social responsibility to make the world a better place and not just take from it.” Carrie Underwood, American Singer and Songwriter.

Anwar Maxamed Diiriye 
Email: anwar@usfamily.net 
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Anwar is a lecturer in Comparative Cultural Studies and the author of The Literature of Somali Onomastics (2006) and the English-Somali and Somali-English Medical Dictionary (2010). He also served as editor-in-chief of the Gobaad Multidisciplinary Journal from 2000 to 2012.