Somalia’s Hirshabelle president sacks Hiiraan governor amid airport revenue dispute

Power struggle in Somalia’s Hirshabelle spills into the open with Hiiraan governor sacked

Somalia’s fragile federal experiment is feeling the strain again, this time in Hirshabelle, where President Ali Abdullahi Hussein Guudlawe has dismissed the governor of Hiiraan region amid a dispute over who collects taxes at Beledweyne’s Ugaas Khaliif Airport. It is a small airfield by global standards, but control over its revenues has become a proxy for power in a state where budgets are thin and authority is contested block by block.

What happened

On Monday, the Hirshabelle presidency announced that Guudlawe had removed Hiiraan Governor Muse Salad Wehliye and appointed Mohamed Arab Hussein Mohamed as his replacement. The communications director for the state presidency, Mohamed Shuuriye Nur, said the move came at the suggestion of Vice President Yusuf Ahmed Hagar, widely known as Dabageed.

The formal notice was terse. The subtext is not. For weeks, tensions have simmered between Wehliye and the vice president over who manages and benefits from airport fees in Beledweyne, the regional capital. People familiar with the matter describe overlapping instructions to airport staff, competing receipts and, ultimately, a showdown that forced the presidency’s hand.

Muse Salad’s next steps are unclear. Dismissed officials in Hirshabelle have, in the past, refused to concede and tried to rally clan allies or federal figures to their side. Hirshabelle authorities, for their part, hold patchy control across Hiiraan, where federal troops, community militias and local administrators share an uneasy space with clan elders who are often the final word on security and justice.

Why this matters

At first glance, an argument over who collects airport tax looks parochial. But in Somalia, where domestic revenues remain among the world’s lowest as a share of GDP, every checkpoint, landing fee and customs office is a lifeline. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have praised Mogadishu’s recent fiscal reforms, but member states like Hirshabelle still rely on local levies to pay police salaries, keep the lights on at ministries and assert their legitimacy. The authority to tax is, in many ways, the authority to govern.

Revenue conflicts also map onto deeper political realities. Hirshabelle is a relatively young federal member state, created in 2016 by merging the regions of Hiiraan and Middle Shabelle. The union never fully settled in Hiiraan, where prominent elders boycotted the formation on and off and some activists have periodically pushed for a separate Hiiraan state. Beledweyne’s Ugaas Khaliif Airport, a modest hub handling domestic flights and cargo, thus carries outsize weight: whoever supervises it is, symbolically and practically, in charge.

This is unfolding as Somali security forces and pro-government community fighters, known as Ma’awisley, maintain pressure on al-Shabaab in parts of Hiiraan and central Somalia. Any political rift in Beledweyne risks distracting local authorities, undermining coordination with federal troops and, in the worst case, reopening space for militants to test checkpoints or intimidate traders.

The new governor

Mohamed Arab Hussein Mohamed is not a household name outside Somalia’s political circles, but he played a role in the 2021 selection process for members of the Federal Parliament representing Hirshabelle. That background hints at a figure comfortable in the deal-making that underpins Somali politics, where parliamentary seats are allocated via intricate negotiations among clans, elders and state leaders rather than direct popular vote.

For Mohamed Arab, the portfolio is challenging from day one. His legitimacy will be watched not just in the state capital, Jowhar, but in Beledweyne’s market stalls, where traders care less about who sits in which office and more about whether road taxes are predictable, airport fees are transparent and security escorts show up as promised.

Hiiraan’s uneasy fit within Hirshabelle

To understand the stakes, it helps to look back. Hiiraan’s identity is deeply rooted in the Shabelle River valley, where periodic floods and droughts write the rhythm of life. Elders in the region have long argued that their economic weight and security burdens are distinct from those of Middle Shabelle. Loyalty is often local first, state-level second. That dynamic has frequently frustrated Hirshabelle leaders, who must knit together two regions with different security profiles and political expectations.

The past three years have seen a surge in local mobilisation against al‑Shabaab in Hiiraan, backed by federal forces and international partners. In towns like Buuloburde and Mataban, the promise of improved roads and better security drew community fighters into a rare alignment with Mogadishu. Yet the civilian side of governance—tax collection, service delivery, corruption complaints—has lagged behind battlefield gains. When the cash box is contested, so is the narrative of who is really in charge.

A familiar pattern with national implications

Somalia’s federal map is, by design, a negotiation. State presidents must balance clan allegiances, federal expectations and donor scrutiny. Vice presidents, often chosen to balance ticket dynamics, emerge as power centers in their own right. When the presidency in Jowhar leans on the vice president to recommend a governor’s removal, it can be read two ways: as a sign of unity at the top—or as a coded admission that the VP holds the keys to critical constituencies in Hiiraan.

For international observers who fund stabilization projects and revenue reforms, the lesson is familiar. Technical fixes—new tax software, audits, harmonized fees—cannot substitute for political bargains. In places like Beledweyne, the person who signs the receipt matters less than whether the proceeds are seen to benefit the city: repairing a river embankment, paying police on time, replacing a stolen transformer. Trust is the true currency of state-building, and it is still scarce.

What to watch next

• Whether Muse Salad accepts the dismissal or attempts to mobilize support among Hiiraan elders, militia leaders or federal allies.
• How quickly the new governor, Mohamed Arab, can assert administrative control over Ugaas Khaliif Airport and publish a clear tariff schedule to calm traders.
• Signals from Mogadishu: the federal government’s appetite for mediating subnational disputes has grown as it seeks to consolidate territorial gains against al‑Shabaab.
• The security temperature around Beledweyne. Political distractions can have immediate effects on road convoys and rural checkpoints.
• Any moves by Hirshabelle to broaden its revenue base, reducing the temptation to fight over a single cash point.

The broader question, for Somalia and for a world watching state-building in real time, is whether the incremental gains of recent years—debt relief milestones, improved customs in Mogadishu, local offensives against militants—can be matched by equally patient, transparent governance in the regions. Can a governor, a president and a vice president agree not only on who collects the airport fee, but on how that fee helps keep the city’s levees from breaking when the river swells?

That answer, as much as any military victory, will determine whether the state on the map becomes a state in the minds of its citizens.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.