Beyond the Strongman Narrative: Puntland’s Real Crisis of Security and Governance

For years, Puntland’s political landscape has been shaped less by dramatic confrontations and more by a subtle, calculated manipulation of narrative. Power here is exercised not only through formal security structures or constitutional authority, but through the ability to define loyalty, redraw the boundaries of belonging, and frame dissent as a public danger. As someone who has lives in Puntland, works in its institutions, and observed its political rhythms firsthand, I have watched this pattern deepen into a method of administration, one that substitutes fear for accountability and narrative control for genuine leadership.

The first maneuver is always semantic: dissent is deliberately conflated with disloyalty. Whenever elders, professionals, business leaders, or youth organizations raise concerns, about electoral timelines, revenue management, external influence, or the growing crisis of unemployment, they are not treated as citizens exercising their right to shape public life. Instead, their identity becomes the issue. Their clan, their motives, their supposed alignment with rival capitals become the subject of debate, not the substance of their arguments. What should be a civic dialogue is reframed as a threat to stability.

In this political environment, clan language is inverted. Rather than serving as a collective safeguard, it becomes an instrument for stigmatizing accountability. A critique of a decision is recast as betrayal. A question becomes a provocation. The presidency is subtly equated with Puntland itself, as if challenging a policy were equivalent to undermining the entire region.

To reinforce this thinking, narrative management is systematically deployed. Media outlets that depend on government access or advertising fall into line, repeating a singular storyline: the presidency as the final barrier between order and collapse; critics as reckless actors aligned with hidden interests; Puntland as a fragile territory under perpetual siege. The story is repeated with such regularity that many internalize it without examination, especially in a society where memories of conflict remain vivid.

The information environment becomes crowded, not silent. But within that crowd, only one voice carries institutional amplification. Independent organizations, those that scrutinize contracts, budgets, or constitutional procedures, find themselves quietly excluded from briefings, starved of access, or targeted by orchestrated online attacks. Dissent does not disappear; it is simply pushed into the margins where it can be dismissed as fringe.

Administrative tools further tighten the grip. Individuals and entities that persist in questioning government decisions encounter the quiet weaponry of bureaucratic delay: suspended licenses, targeted audits, withheld salaries, or sudden regulatory disputes. Each measure is small enough to deny yet heavy enough to signal that non-compliance carries a cost. Instruments of public administration, meant to ensure order, are turned into levers of political discipline.

Economic structures reinforce the same logic. In a political economy where state contracts, security sector employment, and donor-funded projects remain primary sources of opportunity, access is mediated by proximity to the presidential circle. Those aligned with critical media or independent civic spaces discover that doors close without explanation. Over time, self-censorship becomes a survival strategy.

Opposition is not defeated; it is fragmented. Influential elders, Isimo, religious leaders, and respected professionals are absorbed into advisory bodies that provide symbolic legitimacy but little substantive influence. Their participation is paraded as “consultation,” while decisions remain concentrated in a narrow inner circle. Those who refuse co-optation become easier to isolate and discredit. Potential collective reform movements are broken into individual pockets, each easier to neutralize.

Digital platforms extend this architecture. Coordinated networks attack journalists, intellectuals, religious scholars, and activists who question sensitive arrangements, whether related to elections, external military partnerships, or security restructuring. Accusations of clan bias, foreign loyalty, or personal ambition move faster than facts. The result is not ideological consensus but a climate of fear, people withdraw from public debate not because they agree, but because they cannot bear the social and economic cost of visibility.

President Deni’s admiration for Khalifa Haftar fits this pattern. It reflects a worldview uncomfortable with plural politics and attracted to models where authority is concentrated through coercion rather than institutions. Haftar’s system, propped up by militias, foreign capital, and mercenary networks, offers only the illusion of order. To adopt this model in Puntland is to confuse force with governance and obedience with legitimacy.

The influence of this political imagination is already visible: the expansion of the presidential guard, the creation of UAE-backed paramilitary units, the re-centralization of key revenue channels under the presidency, and the empowerment of security structures personally aligned with the President. These steps are presented as “reform,” yet they centralize discretionary power and restrict institutional oversight. Critics are dismissed as “divisive,” constitutional checks are trivialized, and normal political disagreement is portrayed as existential sabotage. Once the government successfully labels dissent as destabilization, almost any overreach can be justified.

External patronage compounds the problem. Partnerships driven by short-term political gain rather than institutional development, especially those with actors who favor compliant partners over autonomous administrations, narrow Puntland’s strategic future. The region becomes more dependent on foreign goodwill and less anchored in its own institutional capacity.

Yet Puntland’s success never came from personalist rule or security theatrics. Its stability was built through negotiated arrangements, shared clan responsibilities, incremental administrative development, and a commitment, however imperfect, to rules over personalities. When institutions are respected, leadership becomes replaceable without destabilizing the entire system.

This is precisely why the distinction between Puntland and any single leader matters. Puntland is not Deni, nor is it any presidency. It is a political project rooted in communities, institutions, and negotiated governance, not in the insecurities of whoever occupies the top office. To question the president is not to undermine Puntland; it is to uphold the very principles that allowed this region to function even when much of Somalia faltered.

Real authority in Puntland will not come from silencing critics or imitating strongmen. It will come from lawful governance, predictable administration, transparent finance, and security structures that operate under institutional, not personal, mandates. Every shift toward narrative manipulation and personalized coercion may prolong the tenure of a leader, but it shrinks the future of the polity.

The task before Puntland’s elites, civil servants, and citizens is simple yet urgent: defend the region’s institutional identity, not the insecurities of those who temporarily hold office. Puntland’s future depends on it.