Adan Madobe Faces Contested Southwest State Presidency

By Dr. Ali Said Faqi Thursday June 11, 2026

Somalia’s politics have a familiar pattern: failure is repackaged, then presented as renewal. That dynamic is again on display with Adan Mohamed Nur “Madobe,” whose installation as the so-called president of Southwest State has been widely denounced in the region as the product of a federal-orchestrated sham election.

This account traces the background, political conduct, and legacy that have followed Adan Madobe throughout his long public life. From the outset, his career has been defined by confrontation, controversy, and repeated accusations that he has treated both constitutional rules and political norms as optional.

Madobe entered politics through the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA) struggle against USC’s General Aidid faction. Following the RRA split in 2002, forces tied to Madobe and those loyal to Hasan Mohamed Nur “Shatigadud” fought a fierce conflict known locally as” Tuhun iyo Torabora” for control of Bay and Bakool. The fighting devastated the area, killed innocent civilians, including women and children, displaced families, destroyed property, and left communities bitterly divided. For many in Bay and Bakool, those years remain among the darkest in the region’s modern history.

The late President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, in his memoir “Halgan iyo Hagardaamo,” described Madobe as someone who persistently sought financial concessions during his speakership. The observation matters because it came from a leader who worked directly with him during the Transitional Federal Government era. It also reinforced a view that has long circulated in political circles: that Madobe sees politics less as public service than as a path to personal gain.

More than 20 years later, the wounds from that conflict are still visible in memory if not in geography. Families in the region continue to recall the fear, displacement, and insecurity that came with the fighting. Time has not erased those scars, and political promotion has not softened them. That history continues to shape public opinion about Madobe’s return to power, because his record remains tied to a war that brought hardship to the same communities he now claims to lead.

His four-year tenure as Speaker of the House of the People did little to calm the criticism that has long shadowed him. From 2022 to 2026, Somalia went through repeated parliamentary crises, procedural wrangles, and mounting concern over the weakening of legislative independence. Lawmakers were suspended under disputed circumstances, debates grew increasingly combative, and major decisions moved ahead over strong objections. Instead of functioning as a check on the executive, parliament increasingly looked like an arm of Villa Somalia.

To many Somalis, Madobe’s rise from Speaker to President of Southwest State was not an abrupt political shift but the culmination of a project that had been underway for years. As one of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s most dependable allies, he spent four years promoting and defending the president’s agenda within parliament. For that reason, many now view his elevation in Southwest State as a political payoff for loyalty to Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Villa Somalia.

An institution that should have safeguarded constitutional order was instead seen as serving executive interests. Rather than strengthening parliament’s authority, Madobe became associated with its weakening. For critics, his time as Speaker will be remembered less for parliamentary leadership than for overseeing one of the most disputed chapters in the chamber’s recent history. The fallout was a steady loss of public trust in one of Somalia’s central democratic institutions.

The process that brought Adan Madobe to the presidency of Southwest State was, by many accounts, a sham, despite being marketed as a “one person, one vote” election. It lacked the credibility, inclusiveness, transparency, and legitimacy expected of a genuine democratic exercise. This was not a contest in which rivals competed on equal footing and the result reflected the freely expressed will of the people. Instead, it was a process whose outcome appeared fixed from the start, and in some ways worse than indirect elections. The aim, critics say, was straightforward: to place a trusted ally of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in one of Somalia’s most strategically important federal member states.

The consequences are unlikely to bring stability, legitimacy, or consensus. If anything, the move is expected to widen existing rifts and create new ones. Rather than uniting Southwest State, the process is likely to make the state more polarized. It also revives a larger concern about the future of federalism and whether federal member states will be allowed to determine their own political fate free from interference by Mogadishu.

Many residents believe Adan Madobe’s priorities lean more toward political and financial advantage than toward governance and development. Those fears are especially acute in Lower Shabelle, where communities worry that valuable agricultural land, coastal resources, public assets, and investment opportunities could be diverted to relatives and political allies at the expense of local people. The concern is that public wealth will serve a narrow circle rather than the wider population, leaving future generations with less control over their land, resources, and economic prospects.

Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed “Laftagareen” continues to reject the process as illegal and unconstitutional. He says he remains the legitimate president of Southwest State and retains substantial political and security backing across the region. The dispute is therefore not merely about an office or a title. At its core, it is a fight over legitimacy, constitutional order, and the right of Southwest State’s people to choose their leadership through a process they recognize as lawful and credible.

The wider stakes are troubling. Southwest State is already struggling with serious security threats, including the continued presence of Al-Shabaab in parts of Bay, Bakool, and Lower Shabelle. At a moment when cooperation is urgently needed, the state instead finds itself trapped in a political confrontation that could further weaken governance and security.

History offers a clear warning: settlements imposed by force, coercion, or outside pressure rarely deliver durable peace. More often, they deepen resentment and plant the seeds of future conflict. If Southwest State is pushed toward confrontation, the blame will fall on those who chose imposition over dialogue and political engineering over consensus.

Southwest State needs leadership that is genuinely legitimate, widely trusted, and grounded in constitutional governance. Its people deserve reconciliation, inclusion, and democratic practice, not political imposition. History cannot be rewritten, and legitimacy cannot be manufactured through declarations from Mogadishu where it does not exist.

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Dr. Ali Said Faqi, former Ambassador of Somalia to the EU