By Abdiqani Ahmed Farah (Dala’aan) PhD

“History is a repository to avoid the future pitfalls: Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit”

The trump win in the presidency of united states changes the political rule of engagement of the western world. This twist hallmarks the right wing endeavor that has been mellowing across the western world in which this political dispensation changes, in a different extent, cultural economic and security deliberations. The discourse already begun if this campaign is beyond the rhetoric of immigrations, defense and the conventional matters. Rather, its economy, climate change, security and traditional societal matters such as the role of the women and the family or somewhat nationalist insurgency of patriarchal paraphernalia about migration. In terms of Somalia, the reconstituting Somali nation-state and institutional building is the paramount. For mysterious reasons 35 years of reinitiating of Somali state endeavor brought about otherwise: winding and rewinding the fabric of the nation into the penumbra by the international community vis-à-vis, at this juncture, the frontline ones whose endeavor is and has been to maintain the status queue. 

As for the economy, the new Trump administration will levy tariffs upon their trade partners very hard indeed, and that will have knock effect upon the third world countries particularly Africa. As a result, Somalia will be the first to suffer as a nation wholly dependent upon aid overwhelmingly by the western world. The international organizations, of which United Nations ones are the vanguard, will be hit harder for the donations they receive from the western world, and the far east Asian countries which will be having a domino effect on Somali in humanitarian aid, development assistance, and social services. On top of that it’s the financial support of African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) without which the nascent major institutions of the state such as the airport and the port of Mogadishu, couldn’t function. All things considered, the International organizations provides vital support to Somalis who are struggling to recover from decades of war and the effects of intermittent catastrophic droughts.  

Based on the above, are the Somali entities who are sitting at the top table of the different layers, federal government and federal member states, aware that once trump is elected as the next four years’ president of the united states everything, as mentioned in the above, changes with it: the support, mainly financial, they used to receive from the mostly western world, and reason is that Donald trump election marks the end of established global economic order. Due to the United States’ longstanding view of some African countries as a valuable and significant partner in a range of sectors, Somalis, despite their infancy, have been finding it difficult to match this eagerness with significant agreements and collaborations (Roble, 2024; Sall, 2013). Instead, America’s strategy toward Somalia is seen ineffective due to the incompetence (lack of skill, aptitude, or competence) of Somali authorities. However, there are concerns Trump might roll back considerable humanitarian and developmental programs that are in the pipe scheduled Somali recovery endeavor. The soon-to-be president has more of a protectionist, insular outlook than his predecessors as one of his major slogans for his first term was “America First”.  

The first issue raised by the above-mentioned is the way the looming federal government election will be conducted, security concerns, the fact that federal member states do not receive a portion of the federal government’s revenue, since the federal president is not in good terms with segments of the federal member state’s presidents, the international community’s equated upon Somalis, the anti-terrorism agenda, and the president’s desire to rejig the provisional constitution, which has existed since the Arta plenary. To lance the boil, do the dudes hitherto at the helm of political power has the acumen to do away with the petty fogging of either fighting over the meager resources the international donors equated upon the calamity stricken poor families in the internally displace sectors of a nation that has been divided according to clan lines since 1991 civil strife. Ever since of the demise of Somali state in 1991, the men who has been running the business of governing the country, more often than not, got compromised and fledgelled into the personal end of the respective one too many presidents mushroomed all over the nation-state.  

The people of Somalia are currently suffering from yet another period of poor leadership as a result of the second term elected president of FG, who has been determined to revoke the provisional constitution for the sole purpose of retaining his position of authority. This is really an extension of the difficult and drawn-out slog-cum-predicament that Somalis have faced for nearly forty years. This made one think of the tyrannical African heads of power: Al-Bashir of Sudan, José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola and Sani Abacha of Nigeria to mention of a few. Each amassed fortunes totaling more than $10 billion in their accounts, and, ironically, they all perished after securing that enormous sum of money over the starvation, poverty, and death that matched their plebeians. It’s a leadership modality that has been gaining ground since the independent decade of the 1950s. It is a modality I coined for a phrase: in Africa one takes all. Never the less, The majority of African nations are adopting democratically responsible administrations, where the man at the top offices (president/prime minster) is periodically removed by the ballot, as the dictatorial style shaped by the stalinism of the eastern blocks began to gradually loosen.

In this Africa evolution of embracing democratically accountable governments, Somalia has been in a quagmire of protracted clan-based civil strife and reached a state where the federal government and federal member states leaders run in the business of governing from clan perspectives. The immediate question begs an answer is ‘Can that person in the name of the president be able to first come up with able ministries, thus functioning institutions that can readjust themselves with the global implications of the Trump election in which the rule of engagement twists? In this regard, the first thing that comes into the political fray is US aid slashes and uncertainty, and based on that, the question begs an answer instantaneously is : Are the Somalia federal government and member states councils of respective ministries, director generals, and other governmental institutions  able-bodied individuals who can prepare their institutions to take matters belonging to them to their counterparts of the US administration first to convince the aid United States equated upon the respective sectors, such as security, institutional building, infrastructure, and piece building, and migration in the background of trump administration that is hell-bent for mass deportation of new migrants in which large sway of them are Somalis running from hunger, lack of security as two third of Somali territory is not under the federal government hand, to be continued in a fashion acceptable to the Trump administration and be improved ties with the US in that sense?

Penultimately, As The United Nations Transitional Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNTMIS) succeeded the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), the priorities for the mission regarding reconstituting Somali nation-state include State-building, constitutional review, free and fair elections, human rights promotion and protection of Rule of law, justice, and security sector. Out of these, the dispute over the constitutional amendment that has been provisional since 2012 is at a very critical juncture, where some of the federal member states, such as Puntland State, and politicians representing other regions called it a matter affecting the clan-based power-sharing system. This critical matter needs the support and coordination of international donors in which the united states is the vanguard. 

Finally, for Somalia to readjust its rule of engagement with the new administration of the United States and further deepen its ties with Washington, as discussed in the above, to usher in an era of “earnest, beneficial, and reciprocal” cooperation, begs characters with utmost diplomatic, knowledge, and leadership experiences under their belt. That means the president, federal or otherwise, should not have to be technically qualified in running of his office but has got the leadership characteristics of assembling the best and the brightest individuals that are at his disposal.

So far, since the reconstitution of Somalia as a federal government and its member states, they, the one too many presidents, should assemble a cabinet consisting of competent personalities taking Somali cases, humanitarian, environmental security, and developmental needs to the world. In this juncture, all administrations of the five continents are gearing up to deal with the new United States administration, of which Donald Trump is the vanguard/the president. Fortunately, or otherwise, his modus operandi is clear and succinct—departure from previous approaches to U.S. leadership in areas such as diplomacy and trade, humanitarian assistance, and the aforesaid matters that, among other nations, hit civil war-stricken Somalia.  

Abdiqani Ahmed Farah (Dala’aan) PhD
Email: abdiqanidalaaan@hotmail.com
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References

Roble FA (2024). Trump’s victory: Beyond election rhetoric. https://wardheernews.com/trumps-victory-beyond-election-rhetoric/

Sall, M. (2013). Africa and the United States of America: A New Kind of Partnership in Today’s Globalized Environment? American Foreign Policy Interests, 35(6), 313–316. https://doi.org/10.1080/10803920.2013.855569

Synopsis of the essayist

Abdiqani Ahmed Farah (Dala’aan) did his PhD at the University of Glasgow. His work focuses on, inter alia, public health, biochemistry, environmental as well as agricultural sciences, higher education management and quality assurance, curriculum development, applied mathematics-cum-statistics, and computer information systems. He has been a research fellow or taught at several universities and colleges, including the University of Glasgow, Somali National University, Technical University of Kenya, and Camden College. Guest lecturer: University of Helsinki, Michigan State University. Member of African Studies Associations.