By Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame
Translated by Ahmed A. Yusuf

I have listened to the voices of many people from different walks of life — students, university lecturers, civil servants, independent professionals, businesspeople, and displaced citizens. They all share a common sentiment: exhaustion, hopelessness, and deep frustration with the state of the nation.

What is most alarming is not just the despair these citizens live with, but the blindness of those in power — their refusal to see the bitter truth and the harsh conditions ordinary people endure. The country’s leadership and the political elite have drifted far from reality, disconnected from the struggles of the common citizen.

This is not merely a moral failure — it is a buried landmine, a ticking bomb that could explode at any time. It represents the gravest threat to our national security.

The greatest challenge facing state-building in Somalia today is a corrupt political culture — one that treats governance not as a sacred duty or public service, but as a machine for personal enrichment.

We now see people flaunting their ill-gotten wealth with pride. Expensive houses built at home and abroad are paraded online; lavish hotels, extravagant shopping sprees, luxurious parties, and endless vacations are showcased on social media. The message they send is clear: politics is no longer about responsibility — it is the fastest route to sudden wealth.

When arrogance defines the national leadership, the very soul of governance evaporates. The rest of the bureaucracy follows suit, each official turning to fill their own pockets.

A key obstacle to genuine statehood is the absence of accountability. Those who once deceived, looted, and betrayed the public are the very same men returning to politics — rebranded and unashamed.

Instead of hiding in disgrace, the same figures who bankrupted the nation now preach about “one person, one vote.” They ignore the crumbling roads, the garbage filling every corner, the women giving birth on the streets, the hospitals where people die for lack of medicine, the schools on the verge of closure, and a justice system where rulings are sold to the highest bidder.

Their only concern is finding another excuse to extend their term — to finish looting what remains. In truth, they are vampires, feeding on the suffering of the people and the misery of the country.

Public taxes and service fees are siphoned into private companies owned by relatives, friends, and loyalists of the regime. The national revenue, meant to build the army, schools, roads, and hospitals, rarely serves its purpose. Apart from paying a few salaries, most of it disappears into the pockets of a small circle bound by kinship and political patronage.

This ruling class fails to see that their oppression, corruption, and neglect are fueling public anger — anger that could erupt at any moment into a popular uprising that sweeps away the entire system.

Hope is the lifeblood of the human spirit; despair is the poison that kills it. Somali businesspeople moving their wealth to Kenya, South Sudan, and Congo; young men drowning at sea or dying in the desert; and the wealthy fleeing abroad — they are not escaping war, but hopelessness and a lost future.

A Nation at a Crossroads

The moral decay at the top has infected the political culture itself. Governance is now seen as an investment venture, where power is traded for profit. Leadership is no longer chosen based on vision or integrity, but on who can deliver political loyalty and financial returns.

If the state has become a business and politics a marketplace, then it follows that the country itself becomes a bazaar, where positions and privileges are bought and sold.

Only a different mindset — a moral and political awakening — can save Somalia. We need a vision of government rooted in justice, accountability, and dignity, one that restores the integrity of public service and the honor of citizenship.

A nation is not governed by money, but by conscience. When arrogance rules, justice digs its own grave — and that is how nations collapse.

Somalia does not need greedy profiteers. It needs true statesmen — patriots who value the nation more than themselves, who serve without expecting reward.

If the ruling elite fail to come down from their ivory towers and address the people’s suffering, the people will one day rise and come for them. And when that day comes, there will be no walls strong enough to hold them back, no foreign protector to shield them.

It will be a confrontation between a parasitic ruling class and a desperate people who feel betrayed — and the outcome will be inevitable.

Abdirhaman A Warsame
translated by: Ahmed A. Yusuf
Email: aayuusuf44@gmail.com