Issue No. 740

Kicking the Can Down the Federal Road: Somalia’s NCC in Crisis

During the first Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) administration, the National Consultative Council (NCC) worked as an influential formative mechanism for the federal system. Then known as either the National Leaders Forum or the National Consultative Forum, there were two largely distinguishable camps– the federal government and the opposition, comprised of the regional leadership. Through these iterations, crucial elements of the current federal model were hammered out, often in the face of extreme resistance from Villa Somalia. It was an essential check-and-balance each way, but particularly to reign in the centralising instincts of a government reluctant to implement a federal system. It was HSM's successor, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, however, who took a sledgehammer to the forum, removing the federalism element and installing several surrogates as Federal Member State (FMS) leaders to de-fang the body.

Upon his return to Villa Somalia in May 2022, HSM promised to return the NCC to a body designed to progress federalism through consensus. Intended to meet every other month, there was plenty to tackle- not least flushing out the federal model and finalising the Provisional Constitution. Instead, it has become a mechanism for either elite consensus to postpone elections or a battleground over federal and regional leaders' self-interested electoral models and timing. Repeat term extensions have been offered to highly unpopular FMS leaders facing significant internal political opposition in exchange for their often reluctant support for Villa Somalia's various agendas.

With every FMS leader unable to truly represent their body politic due to their particular clan heritage, i.e. Jubaland President Ahmed Madoobe hails from the Ogadeen, while a large proportion of the FMS is Mareehaan, the NCC itself is already a dubious representation of the country at best-- even leaving aside Puntland's absence. And three of the four regional leaders present, South West State President Abdiaziz Laftagreen and his counterparts in Galmudug, Ahmed Abdi Karie 'QoorQoor,' and Jubaland, Ahmed Madoobe, terms have expired, casting further doubt on any status of the body's elite pacts.

Without a secretariat, the NCC is convened at Villa Somalia's beck and call, which only chooses to hold them when it feels the political wind blowing in its direction. Months have gone by without the federal and regional leaders coming together, allowing progress on a host of topics, not least issues like fiscal federalism, to atrophy. The ad hoc, intermittent meetings have kicked the can down the road on pressing matters, allowed Villa Somalia to evade scrutiny on its unilaterally centralising agenda, and the FMS presidents to continue avoiding pressure on holding their own overdue presidential elections. 

This week's meeting was little different, having been repeatedly delayed by the schism between the South West State administration led by Laftagareen and Villa Somalia, as well as Madoobe's ill health. As before, HSM once again offered the four FMS leaders another 12-month term extension before some version of one-person, one-vote polls could be held. It appears to have gone down poorly, though, with reports of a heated stand-off over the future of the regional presidential elections and the plan to consolidate federal authority over them. 

Villa Somalia's repeat attempts to undermine the federal system, most notably through the sweeping changes to Chapters 1-4 of the Provisional Constitution rushed through parliament earlier this year, is drawing even some resistance from those like Laftagareen, who care little for the broader questions of federalism. But it was Madoobe yesterday who refused to agree to any concrete electoral decisions without Puntland's representation and walked out of the tense meeting. It is a still-evolving situation, but the discontent within the NCC reflects the broader issues with Villa Somalia's disinterest in reaching a consensus for its hyper-nationalist foreign policy agenda and aggressively centralising domestic policies.

The continued and conspicuous absence of Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni further calls into question the purpose of a diminished NCC. The Puntland leader has boycotted the forum since December 2023, and instead travelled to Bosasso this week to ostensibly launch military operations against Al-Shabaab and the Islamic State in Somalia. Deni is also seeking to shore up support for his administration in the arterial port city following destabilising tensions between the Puntland Security Forces (PSF) and the Garowe-aligned Puntland Maritime Police Force (PMPF). Without the representation of one of the key pillars of Somalia, the legitimacy of the NCC's decisions can be called into question when it is not even a constitutional body and must rely on the federal parliament to lend a veneer of legitimacy to its decisions.

Rather than finding compromise, the NCC has become a co-opted and weakened body that does not reflect or attempt to tackle the crises within Somalia's peripheries. There is a backlog of political and security crises that are building, not least concerning the next iteration of the African Union peacekeeping mission scheduled to begin in 2025. Major sticking points about sourcing the funding and, particularly publicised, the troop-contributing countries remain, with the lack of internal consensus within the NCC and Somalia only fuelling the chaotic buildup. A credible, effective, strategic-thinking NCC would certainly have helped resolve this and other vexed issues facing the country.