By Abdulahi A. Nor
A misguided digital decree exposes a deeper constitutional rot
When governance turns performative, absurdity becomes policy. Somalia’s Federal Government (FGS) has once again proven that it confuses control with leadership. Its latest initiative — a mandatory eVisa for all foreign passport holders, including Somali dual citizens — is less a modernization effort and more an act of bureaucratic coercion.
Under this new decree, travelers must obtain online approval before boarding flights to Somalia. Airlines are threatened with sanctions if they carry anyone without this digital permit. At first glance, this seems routine, a move toward streamlined immigration. But beneath the surface lies something more troubling: a federal overreach that tramples the Constitution and exposes the fragile illusion of Somali unity.
A Digital Tax Without Representation
The eVisa policy is not merely flawed in execution; it is illegitimate in conception. By imposing it unilaterally, Mogadishu ignored both the Federal Member States (FMS) and the Provisional Federal Constitution (PFC), which clearly defines immigration, taxation, and customs as shared powers until a permanent fiscal federation framework is established. No such framework exists.
Puntland and Somaliland immediately rejected the directive. Both regions which manage their own airports and budgets, announced that they would continue to collect their own arrival fees. They refused to transfer revenue to Mogadishu, accusing the FGS of encroachment and theft under the guise of reform.
The result is chaos: dual citizens pay twice, first online and again upon arrival in Hargeisa or Garowe. The very people the government should be courting — investors, diaspora professionals, and returning citizens, are treated as easy prey for double taxation.
It is taxation without representation, digital colonialism by one’s own government.
Federalism in Name Only
The eVisa fiasco is not an isolated misstep. It is the latest manifestation of a government that preaches federalism but practices centralism. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s administration has consistently sidelined the federal states, viewing them not as constitutional partners but as political obstacles.
The National Consultative Council (NCC), originally intended as a mechanism for cooperative governance, has been reduced to a ceremonial forum where attendance is coerced and outcomes predetermined. The FGS uses it to project an image of consensus while ignoring genuine grievances from the states.
Even more alarming is the misuse of the Somali National Army (SNA). Instead of focusing on Al-Shabaab — the enemy that occupies swathes of the south — the army has been deployed to intimidate Jubaland and other states that refuse to submit politically. This militarization of federal disputes is a flagrant violation of Article 126 of the PFC, which restricts the army’s role to national defense, not political enforcement.
A nation that turns its guns inward while terrorists hold its countryside cannot claim to be sovereign — only self-destructive.
The Myth of Universal Suffrage
President Hassan’s government touts “universal suffrage” as its crowning democratic goal. But this is a dangerous illusion. One-person-one-vote cannot exist where one-government-one-gun does not.
Al-Shabaab controls vast stretches of southern Somalia, levying taxes, administering justice, and even providing services where the state has vanished. In these conditions, a national election is not an exercise in democracy but an experiment in delusion. Ballots cannot replace bullets; polling stations cannot function under siege.
To push forward with a universal suffrage narrative while most of the country remains under militant rule is to mock democracy itself. It is performance politics designed to impress donors, not empower citizens.
Real democracy requires more than a ballot box — it requires institutions that protect the vote, courts that uphold it, and a government that respects it. Somalia, today, has none.
Corruption, Cronyism, and the Sale of the Republic
If the eVisa scandal shows the arrogance of power, the illegal sale of public lands in Mogadishu shows its corruption. Reports have surfaced of prime state-owned land being auctioned off to business cronies linked to senior officials. Entire neighborhoods — once home to displaced families — have been bulldozed to make way for luxury complexes.
The dispossessed receive nothing. The well-connected receive deeds.
This predatory land policy is not governance; it is the privatization of public suffering. It also violates Article 43 of the PFC, which safeguards land as a public trust. Yet, in the new Somalia, legality is whatever benefits the ruling circle.
Nepotism, too, has become an institution. Key ministries, military posts, and lucrative contracts are dominated by the president’s family, clan and loyalists. The civil service is now a spoils system, where loyalty outweighs competence. The line between public service and private enrichment has all but disappeared.
International aid intended for reconstruction and humanitarian relief is routinely politicized. Funds are withheld from federal states that defy Mogadishu, while compliant ones are rewarded. It is governance by punishment, a deliberate strangulation of regional autonomy.
And yet, despite these abuses, the FGS remains almost entirely donor-dependent. Over 75% of Somalia’s national budget comes from foreign assistance — much of it intended to support the very federal states now starved of funds. Mogadishu survives not on domestic legitimacy but on external subsidy.
A Republic of Illusions
The eVisa saga might seem trivial compared to land theft, constitutional abuse, and corruption. But it captures the essence of the current government: authoritarian in instinct, amateur in execution.
A confident state consults before it commands. Somalia’s government commands before it even understands.
The eVisa is not a digital leap forward; it is a symptom of a leadership addicted to symbolism. The same impulse that digitizes visas without legal authority also dissolves commissions without parliamentary approval, militarizes domestic politics, and silences critics in the name of reform.
The tragedy is not that Somalia is failing, it is that it is pretending to succeed.
The Path Forward: Consent, Not Control
Somalia’s future hinges on one principle: shared governance or shared collapse. The FGS must abandon its obsession with unilateral control and return to the spirit of federalism envisioned in 2012.
That means genuine consultation with the Federal Member States. It means transparent fiscal federalism, where revenue collection and allocation are clearly defined. It means restoring the independence of commissions and respecting the constitutional limits of presidential power.
Most importantly, it means returning the national army to its rightful purpose: defending Somalia from external and insurgent threats — not from fellow Somalis.
Until these reforms are embraced, every new “innovation” — from eVisas to “digital governance” — will remain hollow. They are the trappings of modernity masking the rot of misrule.
Somalia deserves a government that serves its people, not one that markets its failures as progress.
Abdullahi A. Nor
Email: abdulahinor231@gmail.com
—————
Political Analyst and Constitutional Expert
