By Isha Qarsoon

When President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud stood before cameras in September 2025 and declared that it was a crime for citizens to receive services without a national identity card, he was not simply making a speech about state-building. He was crossing the thin line between policy and law. His words have already reverberated across banks, telecoms, ministries, and ordinary households. Yet behind the authority of his voice lies a more fragile reality: the law itself does not say what he claims it says.

This episode is not about identity cards alone. It illustrates a deeper problem in Somali governance — the substitution of executive proclamation for statutory rule. Somalia’s Constitution, its laws, and the very idea of federalism all rest on the principle that authority must be exercised through proper channels. When a president declares something to be a crime that Parliament has not legislated, the danger is not only legal confusion. The danger is the steady erosion of the rule of law itself.

The Law as Written

The starting point is the National Identification and Registration Authority Act, Law No. 009 of 2023. This statute created NIRA, defined its mandate, and set out the rules for a national identity system. The law empowers NIRA to collect personal data, build a civil register, and issue IDs to eligible citizens and residents. It criminalizes fraud, forgery, impersonation, and obstruction of NIRA’s functions.

What it does not do is impose a general criminal duty on all citizens to obtain an ID. Nor does it state that providing services without verifying an ID is a crime. Under the law, citizens have the right to an ID, but there is no corresponding obligation to seek one. NIRA has the duty to issue, not the power to compel.

This design matters. Somalia’s Provisional Constitution balances central and state authority uneasily. Federal powers must be shared or allocated by law, not seized by decree. By leaving the ID requirement framed as a right rather than an obligation, the Act allows the federal government to build a system without criminalizing the everyday life of citizens.

The President’s Pronouncement

Against this legal background, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s words were stark. Speaking on 18 September 2025, he declared:

“It is a crime for someone without a national ID to receive services from a telecom company, a bank, or a ministry.”

With this single statement, a right became an obligation. A policy goal became a criminal offence. In effect, the president announced new crimes into existence without legislative debate, without parliamentary approval, and without statutory language to back them.

In a functioning constitutional system, such a declaration would be recognized as political rhetoric, not binding law. But Somalia is not such a system. Here, presidential words often fill the void left by weak legislatures, hesitant courts, and fragmented federal structures. Banks and ministries may act on his statement as if it were law, not because it is, but because they fear ignoring him.

The Regulatory Landscape

To be fair, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is not inventing the demand for IDs from nothing. Other parts of the government have already moved in the same direction.

1) The Central Bank now requires national IDs for banking transactions.

2) The Ministry of Transport has made IDs mandatory for driver’s licenses and vehicle registration.

3) The Immigration Department has announced that passports cannot be issued without a national ID.

These directives, though, are sector-specific regulations. They impose conditions for services, enforced through administrative penalties such as denial of service. They do not create crimes. They do not send citizens to court or prison. They are tools of regulation, not of criminal law.

The difference is crucial. When a regulator denies you a license for failing to produce an ID, you may feel pressure, but you are not labelled a criminal. When a president declares your conduct to be a crime without parliamentary authority, the very structure of legality is undermined.

Policy Goals Masquerading as Law

Why, then, did the president frame his message in criminal terms? Part of the answer lies in political strategy. Somalia’s leaders often rely on blunt proclamations to push change quickly. To say that lacking an ID is inconvenient would not move a country. To say it is a crime sends a message of seriousness, even urgency. It puts fear on people. It is also abuse of power.

But the deeper reason lies in the weakness of Somalia’s institutions. When Parliament is slow and fractured, when courts are timid, and when federal member states resist central authority, it is tempting for a president to collapse the distinction between law and policy. By declaring something a crime, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud effectively bypassed the messy processes of negotiation and legislation.

This is not ignorance of the law. It is the deliberate use of presidential power to substitute proclamation for process.

The Constitutional Risk

The consequences are serious. Somalia’s Provisional Constitution is already fragile. It promises federalism but has not completed the allocation of powers between the center and the member states. It enshrines separation of powers but has no robust system of enforcing it because there is no judicial review.

Into this vacuum steps the president. By treating his words as law, he accelerates a drift toward authoritarian legalism — a system where rules are proclaimed rather than enacted, where compliance is enforced without legislative foundation, and where legality becomes a matter of political expediency.

In such a system, the boundary between legitimate state-building and arbitrary rule collapses. Citizens cannot know what is truly required of them. Service providers cannot know whether they face regulatory sanction or criminal prosecution. And federal states cannot know whether their authority will be respected or overridden.

Functional Compulsion vs. Criminal Liability

Some might argue that the president’s declaration simply recognizes reality. If you cannot open a bank account, register a SIM card, obtain a passport, or board a domestic flight without an ID, then IDs are already compulsory in practice. Does it matter whether the requirement is enforced through administrative denial or through criminal law?

It does. The difference between regulation and criminalization is the difference between inconvenience and stigma, between administrative enforcement and penal sanction. Regulation pressures you to comply. Criminal law brands you as an offender, subjects you to prosecution, and places your liberty at risk.

By leaping from one to the other, the president alters the social contract without parliamentary consent.

Lessons in Governance

This episode reveals several broader lessons about Somali governance.

1) Weak Institutions Encourage Proclamation: When Parliament cannot legislate effectively and courts cannot constrain executive powers, executives fill the gap with speech.

2) Federalism Requires Process: usurping authorities reserved for future negotiations undermines the federal bargain.

3) Rule of Law Demands Clarity: Citizens must know whether they face administrative denial or criminal punishment. Blurring the two through declarations and without legislation creates fear, not trust.

4) State-Building Cannot Be Forced by Fiat: Even urgent reforms must be grounded in law, not rhetoric. Otherwise, they risk collapse once political winds change.

Conclusion

Somalia’s National Identification and Registration Authority Act was designed to build a system, not to criminalize its absence. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s September speech, however, declared that absence itself to be a crime. The law obliges NIRA to issue IDs. The president has tried to oblige every Somali to obtain one by proclamation.

The difference may seem technical, but it goes to the heart of governance. Laws are made through Parliament, enforced by the executive branch (through regulators), and interpreted by courts. When presidents declare crimes by speech, the rule of law bends toward rule by decree.

For Somalia, struggling to escape decades of fragility, this is not a small matter. The health of its federal system, the legitimacy of its institutions, and the trust of its citizens all depend on the ability to distinguish between policy goals and binding law. The moment that distinction is erased, Somalia risks trading its fragile constitutionalism for the certainty of proclamation.

And once that path is taken, every right can be redefined by the next speech.

Isha Qarsoon
Email:  Ishaqarsoon1@gmail.com
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Isha Qarsoon- is a platform dedicated to addressing critical issues pertaining to good governance, corruption, and social challenges. It emphasizes investigative journalism as a means to uncover and disseminate information, enabling the public to engage with and understand the realities of the country. Through its focus on transparency and accountability, the forum aims to foster informed public discourse and contribute to societal awareness and reform