Somalia’s identity shake-up: a bid to reclaim control sparks questions about reach and rights
MOGADISHU — In a forceful televised address that mixed alarm at security risks with the blunt tools of statecraft, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud announced a sweeping overhaul of how Somalis are identified: passports, he said, will no longer be the primary credential for accessing government or private services. Instead, the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) card must be used — and those who refuse to comply, he warned, “will be considered a national offender.”
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Numbers that strain credulity
The president’s claim that more than 10 million people hold Somali passports has startled analysts. For a country with a population widely estimated in the high teens of millions, that figure suggests passports circulate far beyond the resident population — a reflection of Somalia’s large diaspora, years of weak document controls and a chaotic period after state collapse in the 1990s when paper records were easy to manufacture or duplicate.
“We will fix how passports are issued,” Mohamud said, adding that institutions that continue to accept passports instead of the NIRA card are complicit in enabling “terrorists, criminals, and undocumented foreigners.” The goal, he said, is ambitious: register at least 20 million citizens with NIRA, even though the authority has so far enrolled roughly 500,000 people.
That gulf between current registration and stated ambition raises immediate practical questions. How do you build a robust national register in a country where infrastructure is thin, many live in rural or contested areas, and meaningful trust in central institutions is limited?
Pushback from federal regions
The rollout is already running into political friction. Two federal member states, Puntland State in the northeast and Jubbaland in the south, have publicly refused to implement the NIRA system, citing a lack of consultation. Their resistance is not merely administrative; it sits atop a long-standing tension between Mogadishu and regional capitals over authority, resources and legitimacy.
For leaders in those regions, a centralized identity database can feel like an assertion of control. For Mogadishu, inconsistent documentation has been a practical and security headache: forged or poorly vetted passports can facilitate smuggling, human trafficking and the movement of fighters across borders.
What’s at stake: security, citizenship and exclusion
The immediate pitch is security. Somalia has spent years battling an insurgency linked to al-Shabaab, and porous documentation is one vector for cross-border movement and covert infiltration. By tying access to services — health care, education, legal recognition — to possession of a NIRA card, the federal government seeks to make it harder for bad actors to hide in plain sight.
But heavy-handed identity policies can cut both ways. Humanitarian workers and rights groups caution that linking basic services to a central ID risks excluding vulnerable people: displaced families, marginalized clans, women who lack documentation, and people who have been displaced by drought or conflict. In countries recovering from state failure, reasserting control through identity registration sometimes produces better records — but can also create new forms of statelessness.
- Security gains: A reliable ID system can improve border controls, policing and counterterrorism efforts.
- Governance gains: Strong registers enable better planning, tax collection and delivery of services.
- Risks: Exclusion of marginalized groups, political backlash, and the potential weaponization of data in a fragmented polity.
A global context
Somalia’s push to digitize and centralize identity mirrors broader trends. From India’s Aadhaar to Ethiopia’s National ID programme, states are racing to pair citizens with databases and biometrics. The appeal is universal: efficiency, development financing, and security. But those programmes have also sparked controversies — from privacy concerns to the exclusion of people who can’t access enrollment centers.
Somalia’s unique challenge is its fractured political landscape and the legacy of decades without a functioning central registry. The country’s diaspora, estimated at up to a few million and widely dispersed across Europe, North America and the Gulf, complicates any attempt to align passports with residency. Many passports were issued long ago, sold, lost, or forged; others belong to people who have spent decades abroad.
How the reform could play out
Practical hurdles abound. NIRA needs equipment, trained staff, secure data centers and a broad, neutral outreach campaign to persuade citizens to register. There are also legal and ethical questions about what happens to people who cannot produce a national ID: the president has said they will lose access to citizenship rights and public services, a punitive step that could harm millions.
Regional refusal to cooperate could create parallel systems: one where Mogadishu’s NIRA becomes the standard in government-controlled areas, and another where passports and local registries continue to circulate in member states that resist federal oversight. That fragmentation would blunt the policy’s security benefits and deepen political rancor.
At a busy NISA (National Intelligence and Security Agency) checkpoint in Mogadishu, I spoke with a taxi driver who said he’d heard the president’s speech on the radio and was skeptical but resigned. “Anything that can stop bad people entering is good,” he said, “but I worry if my cousin who lives in a camp in Beledweyne can get the card. We don’t have a NIRA center near him.” His worry points to the friction between big national aspirations and everyday logistical realities.
Questions for Somalia and the international community
President Mohamud’s declaration is a clear exercise of central authority at a time when Somalia’s institutions are trying to rebuild. It raises pressing questions that go beyond technical fixes: How will the government guarantee inclusive access? What safeguards will protect personal data? How will Mogadishu negotiate with recalcitrant regions to avoid deepening divisions?
The international community — donors, UN agencies and neighbouring countries — will have a role to play. Technical support, funding for mobile registration units, and oversight to ensure rights are protected can ease the roll‑out. But no amount of tech will substitute for political compromise in a federal system where identity is also a question of power.
Somalia’s experiment with a national ID is a test of state capacity and political will. If successful, it could help stabilize borders and improve service delivery; if mismanaged, it could deepen exclusion and inflame regional tensions. The real question is not merely whether the cards are issued, but whether they become instruments of inclusion — or of new marginalization.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
