For much of his presidency, Said Abdullahi Deni appeared to view Puntland State less as the destination of his political project than as the launchpad for Mogadishu. The region provided the office, security apparatus, public finances, political platform, and parliamentary influence he needed to pursue national power. Yet he often governed as though Garowe were a temporary headquarters on the way to Villa Somalia.
Puntland State was not treated as the mission. It was treated as the machinery.
- Advertisement -
That explains why the first half of Deni’s presidency often seemed politically active but institutionally shallow. The cabinet operated less as a body for collective decision-making than as an extension of the presidency. Ministers were expected to implement directives, not debate them. Independent judgment carried risks, and policy coordination relied excessively on the president’s inner circle while experienced politicians and capable officials remained outside the process.
That is not a cabinet. It is a chain of command.
The Puntland State parliament, meanwhile, has frequently been handled as an institution to contain rather than one to respect. Legislatures are meant to examine budgets, question ministers, investigate failures, and require the executive to account for its decisions. But governments that interpret scrutiny as hostility will invariably favor compliant lawmakers over independent ones. They seek agreement without accountability.
That is not stability. It is institutional suffocation.
The same centralizing tendency has shaped Puntland State’s regional administrations. Mudug, Bari, Nugaal, Karkaar, Sanaag, Haylaan, and the region’s other local authorities cannot be governed indefinitely through instructions from Garowe. They need clear mandates, administrative capacity, predictable funding, and sufficient political space to answer to their communities. Yet the presidency has repeatedly placed centralized control ahead of lasting local empowerment.
A state cannot be built from the capital alone.
Deni’s campaign for Somalia’s federal presidency brought the limits of that model into sharp focus. He expected federal parliamentarians linked to Puntland State to support his bid, and he assumed political allies elsewhere would repay earlier backing with loyalty. At the decisive moment, however, they did not.
The result was not merely defeat. It was exposure.
Deni had invested in politicians, but he had not built durable political conviction. He had assembled a network of transactions rather than a constituency committed to a common national project. Once the calculations shifted, the alliances shifted as well.
This is the truth he had to learn: political loyalty purchased through patronage is temporary by design.
Since then, Deni has changed—at least in public presentation, and perhaps partly in conviction. He has traveled more extensively, met traditional elders in Mudug and Bari, and adopted a more measured public style. His administration has also placed greater emphasis on the Puntland State Defence Forces, an institution that merits sustained investment, professional leadership, firm civilian oversight, and dependable support for its personnel.
These are positive signs. But they are not enough.
The Puntland State Defence Forces must not become another vehicle for presidential politics. A credible security sector requires professional recruitment, accountable chains of command, regular salaries, logistical planning, parliamentary oversight, and a clear divide between state security and factional loyalty. When security institutions serve a president rather than the law, they may preserve power temporarily—but they do not safeguard the state.
Puntland State’s public finances demand the same discipline. Citizens are entitled to know how revenue is collected, how contracts are awarded, how budgets are spent, and whether public resources serve public priorities. The administration cannot ask for public trust while treating budget transparency as something it can provide only when convenient. A government that raises revenue must account for it.
Puntland State needs more than road tours, speeches, and carefully staged public gatherings. It needs functioning schools, reliable health services, effective local councils, water infrastructure, opportunities for its young population, and an economic strategy capable of turning its coastline, livestock, fisheries, trade routes, and potential natural resources into broad prosperity rather than elite advantage.
Regional visits matter only when they produce institutions that remain after the motorcade has departed.
Deni’s more fundamental weakness may be his apparent preference for loyalty over competence. Experienced civil servants, respected elders, capable politicians, and independent policy professionals complicate presidential control because they ask difficult questions. They challenge assumptions, insist on procedures, and remember earlier failures. They do not always applaud on command.
That is why they are indispensable.
Instead, the administration has too often elevated inexperienced aides and political intermediaries whose principal qualification is personal loyalty. Energy has value, and youth is an asset. Neither, however, can replace judgment, expertise, or institutional memory. Puntland State cannot be governed through an echo chamber of people whose careers depend on never telling the president “no.”
This is not strength. It is fear disguised as control.
Deni’s political background may help explain that instinct. His connections to the Islah current and his earlier service in Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s first administration placed him in political settings where hierarchy, discipline, and internal loyalty carried considerable weight. But no political tradition can justify weakening public institutions, and no movement culture excuses treating criticism as sabotage.
Puntland State has outgrown the politics of personal command.
Its future rests on a stronger parliament, a credible cabinet, empowered regional administrations, a professional security sector, transparent public finances, and a civil service accountable to the public rather than the president’s inner circle. These are not abstract reform slogans. They mark the difference between a functioning state and a personal administration.
Deni now has an opportunity few leaders are given: failure has compelled him to reconsider his purpose. He can turn that experience into maturity by appointing serious officials, accepting criticism, opening government, strengthening institutions, and leaving Puntland State more capable than he found it.
Or he can continue governing through personal networks, political suspicion, centralized authority, and a narrow circle of loyal dependents.
The first choice would define a legacy.
The second would reinforce the harshest judgment of his presidency: that Puntland State was never a homeland to govern, but merely a platform to use.
Puntland State is not a route to Mogadishu. It is not a consolation prize after Mogadishu. And it is not a private kingdom for any president.
_________________________________________
Ismail H. Warsame served as founding Chief of Staff and Director General at the Puntland State State of Somalia Presidency from 1998 to 2004. He later worked as a UN-World Bank Joint Secretariat Zonal Technical Coordinator for Puntland State and as Somalia’s National Aid Technical Coordinator in cooperation with the European Union.
