Somalia’s defense minister slams Nairobi meeting with two regional leaders, opposition

Somali Politics Spill Into Nairobi Again — And Mogadishu Pushes Back

It is a familiar scene in East African diplomacy: Somali politicians gathering in a Nairobi hotel to hash out the country’s future far from Mogadishu’s checkpoints and political heat. This week, that well-worn script met a forceful rebuttal from Somalia’s defense minister, who said enough is enough.

In a sharply worded post, Defense Minister Ahmed Macallin Fiqi condemned a Nairobi meeting of opposition figures and regional leaders — among them Puntland State’s Said Abdullahi Deni and Jubaland’s Ahmed Mohamed Islam “Madobe” — arguing their talks served “outside interests” and undercut the authority of Somalia’s central government. “The future of Somalia is decided inside the country, not in a foreign land,” Fiqi wrote, insisting it was “unacceptable” for those opposed to state-building to deliberate on the nation’s fate. He added that a legitimate government is in place “whose responsibility is to guide the country’s future.”

At the Nairobi gathering, the attendees — including former prime ministers Hassan Ali Khayre and Saacid Shirdoon and MP Abdirahman Abdishakur — agreed to form a “Somali Future Council.” The group cast its agenda in broad strokes: political reform, security and the shape of national elections. The announcement landed just as President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud prepared to travel to Kismayo for talks with Jubaland officials aimed at defusing a widening impasse and setting the table for elections.

Why meetings abroad rankle in Mogadishu

The minister’s message echoes a long-running grievance in Somalia’s capital: that too many pivotal decisions about a sovereign state are made in conference rooms outside its borders. Nairobi, a regional hub teeming with Somali business, media and diplomatic circles, has hosted numerous Somali political negotiations over the years. For many in Mogadishu, that reliance is a reminder of the country’s fragility — and a lever for external influence.

The optics matter. When elites gather abroad, particularly in a neighboring country with its own security interests in Somalia, it feeds a narrative that power plays and patronage networks operate beyond the accountability of Somali institutions. That is not unique to Somalia; from Libya’s rival summits in foreign capitals to Sudan’s talks hosted across the Red Sea, the region is full of political processes conducted at arm’s length from the people they affect.

Fiqi’s language went further, suggesting some actors at the Nairobi meeting had a hand in violent acts, citing an attack on Mogadishu’s Wardhiigley police station. The accusation underscores how blurred the lines can be between political competition and security threats in a country where al-Shabaab remains potent and local militias are a fact of life.

Federalism on a fault line

At its core, the clash is about who gets to define Somalia’s federal project. Puntland State — the country’s oldest federal member state — has sparred repeatedly with the central government over constitutional reform, resource sharing and the conduct of elections. Jubaland, with deep ties to Kenya and a strategic port in Kismayo, has long defended its autonomy. Both regions have at times suspended cooperation with Mogadishu, accusing it of overreach.

The creation of a “Somali Future Council” looks, to Mogadishu’s eyes, like a parallel power center. To its backers, it is a counterweight, a forum for regions and opposition figures who say they are shut out of national decision-making. In practice, both narratives can be true. Somalia’s federalism is a work in progress, often improvised through elite bargains rather than codified consensus.

The stakes have grown since the government moved to simplify Somalia’s complex indirect electoral system and signaled a push toward eventual universal suffrage. Puntland State has championed one-person-one-vote at the local level; it is wary, however, of central authorities dictating terms from the capital. The question is not whether Somalia needs electoral reform — a widely shared goal — but who sets the rules, and with what guardrails.

Security and the election clock

Politics in Somalia cannot be separated from the gunfire on its periphery. The African Union’s mission is drawing down, and Somali forces have expanded operations against al-Shabaab with mixed results — a series of advances alongside painful setbacks and deadly retaliatory attacks in urban centers. Donors are recalibrating support as the security architecture shifts and the inflationary effects of global crises ripple through aid budgets.

In this context, an election calendar is more than a democratic exercise. It is a stress test of the state’s capacity to administer polls across a fractious federation under constant militant threat. The Nairobi meeting, and the defense minister’s broadside, expose how fragile the political consensus remains on even the sequencing of that process.

Oil, money and legitimacy

Fiqi’s post also invoked oil — a combustible word in Somali politics. The government has touted new hydrocarbon prospects and contracts in recent years, while critics have questioned legal frameworks and revenue-sharing mechanisms. Whether or not commercial production is imminent, the mere prospect of energy wealth raises the temperature of center–periphery relations. Who signs the deals? Which communities benefit? How are revenues audited and distributed across federal member states?

Around the world, potential resource windfalls often sharpen elite rivalries. In countries transitioning from conflict, the temptation to pre-allocate slices of a future pie — and to do so outside formal institutions — can derail fragile reform agendas. Somalia is not immune.

A pattern with regional echoes

There is a broader, regional story here. In the Horn of Africa, political actors frequently step outside their borders to seek leverage — convening in Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Djibouti, or Gulf capitals. Host governments provide security, visibility and sometimes patronage; exiles and opposition figures find safer ground. For those in power at home, these meetings can feel like a challenge to sovereignty. For those on the outside, they can be lifelines.

Somalia’s leaders, current and former, have cycled through both roles. The country’s recent history has seen presidents and prime ministers shift from exile to the Villa Somalia and back to opposition. In that churn, the demand for “Somali-owned” processes remains powerful. The question is how to achieve them in practice — inclusively, transparently and inside Somalia’s own institutions.

What to watch next

• The Kismayo visit: President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s talks with Jubaland could cool temperatures or harden positions. Will there be a roadmap on electoral sequencing and security coordination?
• The “Somali Future Council”: Is it a short-lived pressure group or an emerging opposition bloc with a concrete program? Who funds it, and will it engage with federal institutions or run parallel tracks?
• Federal–member state bargaining: Can Mogadishu and Puntland State find common ground on constitutional changes and resource sharing, or are we headed for another season of boycotts?
• Security realities: As international forces step back, can Somali security institutions protect political processes from al-Shabaab disruption, particularly in urban centers?
• Donor posture: Will partners reward dialogue and compromise, or will fragmented engagement encourage more meetings abroad?

Somalia’s defense minister has drawn a line: decisions about the country’s future should be made on Somali soil. Many Somalis will agree with the sentiment. Yet the harder task lies ahead — crafting a process credible enough that rivals choose a table in Mogadishu over a ballroom in Nairobi. As the election clock ticks and the security landscape shifts, the measure of Somalia’s political maturity may be less about where leaders meet than whether they can agree on the rules, the referees and the results.

For a region hungry for stability — and for Somalis exhausted by cycles of promise and paralysis — the next few weeks will tell whether this latest flare-up is just more political theater or the start of a clearer path toward a widely accepted vote. The world has seen this movie before. Can Somalia write a different ending?

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.