By Abdisalam Ali Farah (Biligsey)
Behind the polished communiqués and donor briefings emanating from Mogadishu lies an uncomfortable truth: Somalia’s education and development sectors have become battlegrounds for political control and personal enrichment. Nowhere is this abuse more visible or more damaging—than in Puntland, where children’s classrooms have been turned into leverage and education projects into instruments of coercion.
Since Somalia’s international re-recognition in 2012, all external assistance has been channeled through federal ministries under the “one-country system.” In theory, this framework was meant to restore national coherence after decades of collapse. In reality, it has concentrated enormous discretionary power in Mogadishu, enabling federal officials to decide who receives development assistance, when, and on what political terms.
For Puntland, this arrangement has proven disastrous.
The Ministry of Education and Higher Institutions of Puntland, like those of other Federal Member States, is formally linked to the Federal Ministry of Education in Mogadishu. As a result, donor-funded education projects intended for Puntland’s schools must pass through federal approval, coordination, and release mechanisms. In a genuinely federal system, this would be a technical process. In Somalia today, it is a political chokehold.
Education, by constitutional design and decades of practice, is primarily a state-level responsibility. Puntland has managed its own education system since the late 1990s, long before federal institutions were reassembled in Mogadishu. It built schools, trained teachers, developed curricula, and administered examinations when the so-called federal center barely existed.
Yet the current Federal Government under President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has embarked on a deliberate campaign of recentralization. By unilaterally adopting a new constitution without national consensus—a document Puntland has flatly rejected—the federal leadership has attempted to rewrite Somalia’s social contract and resurrect a unitary system of governance that Somalis decisively rejected in 1991.
This constitutional power grab has poisoned relations between Mogadishu and Garowe. But rather than resolve the dispute through dialogue or constitutional mechanisms, the Federal Government has chosen a more cynical route: weaponizing education and development assistance.
Over the past several years, the Federal Ministry of Education has increasingly obstructed, delayed, or micromanaged education projects intended for Puntland’s students. These actions are rarely justified on technical grounds. Instead, they serve as punitive measures—signals to Puntland that political independence will be met with institutional strangulation.
Puntland’s Ministry of Education has repeatedly attempted to insulate education from politics, urging federal authorities to separate constitutional disagreements from humanitarian and developmental obligations. Education is not a privilege granted by Mogadishu; it is a fundamental right. But these appeals have been systematically ignored.
When Puntland officials raise concerns, the response from federal authorities is often dismissive and revealing: “Puntland is like the rest of the Federal Member States.” Translation: submit, or suffer the consequences.
What this statement deliberately obscures are that many Federal Member States lack the political autonomy, institutional strength, or financial resilience to object. Their silence should not be mistaken for consent. Puntland, by contrast, has the capacity—and the constitutional duty—to speak out when federal overreach crosses into abuse.
The Federal Government’s proper role in education should be limited to coordination, policy harmonization, and monitoring. Implementation belongs to the states. Instead, federal officials—led by Minister Farah Abdirahman Abdiqadir and his associates—have transformed the ministry into a gatekeeping apparatus, where project approvals, releases, and timelines are contingent on political loyalty.
Attempts to reframe this crisis as an abstract debate between federalism and centralism are a deliberate distraction. The real scandal lies in the conduct of certain federal officials who treat education projects as cash-generating opportunities and political bargaining chips.
Project funds are delayed not because of capacity gaps, but because obstruction creates leverage. Contracts are micromanaged not to improve quality, but to control access. Bureaucratic hurdles are erected not for accountability, but to extract rents. In this ecosystem, corruption thrives while classrooms deteriorate.
International donors must also confront an uncomfortable reality: the structures they rely on are being abused. Funds intended for children’s education are being manipulated to discipline political dissent and enrich officials whose loyalty lies not with Somali children, but with patronage networks in Mogadishu.
Education projects are not tools of state control. They are lifelines in a country where millions of children are out of school, teachers are underpaid, and communities are barely surviving. Turning these projects into political weapons is not just immoral—it is criminally negligent.
The message to the Federal Government must be unequivocal: stop holding Puntland’s children hostage. Stop weaponizing education to enforce political conformity. Stop looting development assistance under the guise of coordination.
If Somalia’s leaders are serious about rebuilding the nation, they must begin by dismantling the corrupt machinery that has turned federal ministries into instruments of extortion. A state that feeds itself on the suffering of its children has no moral authority—and no future.
Education must be returned to its rightful place: a neutral, humanitarian, and child-centered public good, free from political blackmail and corruption.
Anything less is a betrayal not only of Puntland, but of Somalia itself.
Abdisalam Ali Farah (Biligsey)
Email: [email protected]
