MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Former Puntland President Abdirahman Farole on Thursday accused Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of effectively separating Mogadishu from the rest of the country, warning that Somalia is on the brink of fragmentation as militant group Al-Shabaab advances closer to the capital.
Speaking at the opening of a major political conference in the southern port city of Kismayo, Farole said Mogadishu is being governed in isolation, likening its status to that of Somaliland, the self-declared independent region in the northwest that broke away from Somalia more than three decades ago.
“President Hassan Sheikh has convinced himself that Mogadishu belongs to him alone and that he can govern it without the rest of the country,” Farole said. “In doing so, he has broken the capital away from the Somali state.”
Farole, a veteran politician who has played a central role in Somalia’s state-building process, said the president has consolidated power in the capital while ignoring the views and demands of opposition leaders and federal member states. He warned that such centralization has weakened national cohesion at a critical moment.
Despite the concentration of authority in Mogadishu, Farole said, Al-Shabaab fighters are now “at the gates of the city,” advancing at an alarming pace and exposing the fragility of the government’s security gains.
Farole was among the key figures involved in drafting and signing Somalia’s provisional constitution during the Garowe conferences in 2012, a milestone in the country’s effort to rebuild a federal system after decades of civil war.
He said Somalia is approaching a dangerous tipping point and called for urgent collective action to prevent further fragmentation.
“Saving Somalia is not the responsibility of a president who refuses to listen,” Farole said. “It is the responsibility of the leaders gathered here.”
The Kismayo conference has drawn politicians from across Somalia’s political spectrum amid rising tensions between the federal government and regional administrations over resource-sharing, security and the future of the country’s federal system.
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