Issue No. 500

With all eyes trained on the Strait of Hormuz blockades and their geopolitical convulsions, discussions and concerns, too, have risen about the perils of other globalised chokepoints, not least the Bab al-Mandab. The threats to the stability of the Bab al-Mandab, the Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea may not arise principally from the escalatory logic that the US, Iran, and Israel have been locked in, but the threats posed from collapse and contested sovereignty offer little relief. Off Somalia's northern coastline in particular, it is transnational criminal networks — expressed in smuggling, piracy, and, less visibly but no less consequentially, illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing — that define the character of offshore insecurity. It is this last phenomenon that provides the foundation on which much of Somalia's maritime disorder is built, and which remains the most consistently neglected.

Villa Somalia's triumph in Baidoa may yet turn to ashes. Since the ousting of wary friend-turned-foe, Abdiaziz Laftagareen, in late March, the federal government has ploughed ahead with preparations for state- and district-level elections in South West. Nominally scheduled for next week, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has chosen to reward his stalwart parliamentary ally, Aden Madoobe from the Rahanweyne/Hadaamo, with the regional presidency after some vacillation, naming him the sole Justice and Solidarity Party (JSP) candidate

In Act III, Scene I of William Shakespeare's tragedy Coriolanus, the tribune Sicinius addresses the gathered representatives and, rejecting the disdain the titular character displays towards plebeians, defends them, stating, "What is the city but the people?" Capturing the struggle between the elite and the masses of ancient Rome, the line has remained politically resonant for centuries--emphasising that a city, democracy, and state rely on the people, not just their leader. Or perhaps, not just its buildings. It is a lesson missed by Villa Somalia, though, with the twilight weeks of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's term in office — at least, constitutionally — dominated by the government's twin campaigns in the capital: land clearances and the militarisation of Mogadishu.

On Tuesday, 14 April, the four-year term of Somalia's federal parliament ended, or rather, it didn't. Villa Somalia's (un)constitutional coup of a year-long term extension for the parliament and president in March remains in effect, leaving the institution in a kind of lingering zombie statehood. It is perhaps a fitting denouement for the 11th parliament, whose degeneration has been so thorough that its formal expiration means little in practice.

As global energy markets reel from the partial shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz and war insurance premiums skyrocket by nearly 4,000%, an unlikely maritime security provider is emerging as a critical stabiliser in one of the world's most vital shipping corridors. The Somaliland Coast Guard, operating from the port city of Berbera, has quietly begun providing maritime escort services, seeking to reduce shipping insurance costs—and consequently, the price of commodities and energy for consumers across the Horn of Africa and beyond.

Over the weekend, a flurry of viral posts on X (formerly Twitter) highly critical of Türkiye by the Ugandan army chief risked tipping the three-way relations between Somalia, Türkiye, and Uganda into a new tailspin. General Muhoozi - the son of Ugandan President Yoweri K. Museveni and the Chief of the Ugandan People's Defence Forces (UPDF) - accused Türkiye of disrespect, threatened to pull troops out of Somalia, and further demanded USD 1 billion in compensation from Ankara. Although the posts were deleted on Sunday, the storm the comments generated has not died down.

The 19th-century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote in his novel, The Brothers Karamazov: “Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him.” In Somalia today, we are suffering because our head of state has lied to himself so much so, that Dostoevsky had alluded to, he has reached a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him. However, before we delve into the nature or purpose of the lie and its grave national, regional, and international consequences, a bit of history is warranted on Somalia as a nation-state.

On Monday, a politician widely regarded as Ankara’s primary proxy in Somalia was inaugurated as a Member of Parliament (MP) under circumstances that Somali citizens and political observers are denouncing as a brazen institutional theft. This unprecedented case of electoral misconduct occurs in the twilight of the current parliament’s mandate, signaling a deep-seated crisis in legislative integrity.

In the 17th century, the Ottoman polymath Kâtip Çelebi penned 'The Gift to the Great on Naval Campaigns', a great tome that analysed the history of Ottoman naval warfare at a moment when Constantinople sought to reclaim maritime supremacy over European powers.