Somalia: A State in Search of Exceptional Leadership — A Book Review

Reviewed By: Adan M. Ismail

Author: Dr Abdurahman Abdullahi (Baadiyow)

Publisher :Looh Press, England, UK

Year : 2025

Pages : 386 pages

The book, Somalia: A State in Search of Exceptional Leadership, by Dr. Abdirahman Baadiyow, is an important addition to the scholarship on Somali leadership and governance. Its timely advent warrants it a review.

The book opens with a lengthy introduction in which the author lays the groundwork for nearly all its substantive themes. He segments it into two sections. The first provides a comprehensive examination of governance and leadership, including various leadership theories and styles. The second offers biographical accounts of two former prime ministers, Abdirizak Haji Hussein and Abdullahi Issa, and Somalia’s first president, Aden Abdulle. The book concludes with two standalone chapters that examine the stagnation of Somalia’s contemporary political order and propose solutions.

In the first section, the author indirectly debunks the binary romanticism over democratic or authoritarian Somalia common in post-civil war generations. He argues that Somalia was never a stable state, let alone strong.

Its governance has been rickety throughout with severity differing across the epochs. This is when we use institutional capability as the scale over physical strength.

To justify, he identifies sequential governance pitfalls, the first being after independence when winner-takes-all majoritarian rule fostered alienation, political squabbling and social distrust that almost precipitated the breakup of the infant republic. He calls these formative years that “failed to sustain.” The second, he argues, came when the military usurped power, abolished the constitution and aborted all hopes of harmonious rectification.

The fate of the state was left to the whims of one Big Man backed by a close-knit politico-military elite.

According to the author, the Ogaden region War defeat created an opportunity for opportunistic military officers to attempt a coup and prompted the government to respond with mass repression that fuelled clan sentiments. Meanwhile, the economic burden of hosting a huge refugee population further strained state capacity.

These cumulatively propelled Somalia into the third and final phase of its collapse. Essentially, this phase-by-phase account conveys that Somalia’s governance tribulations cannot be confined to post-civil war administrations but spans all through the postcolonial period.

Nor is state collapse a sudden stroke by individual actors, whether military leaders or clan rebel movements, as some mainstream accounts tend to suggest. Rather, the catastrophe of 1991 was the culmination of three decades of civilian and military misgovernance.

To establish a continuum of historical critique on Somalia’s malgovernance, the author proceeds to fault the Islamist governance experiment in post-civil-war Somalia for failing to heed the cardinal rule of “know Islam and know the context.” The Islamic Courts Union’s (ICU) failure to translate its territorial consolidation in south-central Somalia, which the author describes as “a critical moment in Somalia’s recent history”, into a comprehensive programme for Somali state revival illustrates the gap between the rhetorical appeal of Islamism and the practical demands of state governance. On Somali governance across epochs, the author reaches the sobering conclusion that “whether democracy, dictatorship or Islamists, the conclusive evidence was the failure to institute a viable Somali State over more than sixty-eight years.” His answer to the critique, however, carries a regrettable tone of what might have been : the missed opportunity to reform republican democracy by replacing majoritarianism with proportional representation before the military takeover.

In justifying proportional democracy, the author first draws on indigenous Somali values. He observes that customary law ( xeer ) and the traditional assembly ( shir ) embody principles of inclusive governance consistent with proportional representation.

He then connects these traditions to Islamic concepts of inclusive governance, referencing Ibn Khaldun’s proposition that Islamic governance principles accommodate diverse perspectives and are compatible with the social psychology of clan-organised nomadic societies. Having established this twofold argument, the author then explicitly makes the case for proportional democracy as suited to Somalia.

In practical terms, he proposes a 5% threshold in parliamentary elections, with parties forming a government in proportion to their share of parliamentary seats. For instance, a party holding 30% of the seats would receive a corresponding share of government positions. The author presents this as a means of addressing the political feuding of a tribal society.

An interesting aspect in the second section is the author’s contextual treatment of the leadership styles of the leaders featured in the book. Somali political biographies often concentrate on leaders’ conduct in the political arena and rarely pay attention to how that conduct could be unconscious regurgitation of formative experiences.

The author draws a compelling connection between Aden Adde’s laid-back personality and his formative life of being born into a small non-domineering clan, an orphaned childhood that may have taught him to remain composed, early exposure to Italian fascist treatment that bred an aversion to overbearing personality, and a self-made character that inclined him to respect others’ autonomy.

Similarly, Prime Minister Abdirizak’s forceful and sometimes confrontational leadership style and his vengefulness against political opponents are contextualised through his childhood in the harsh Mudug region known for constant tribal feuding and hardened nomadic spirit. This approach of linking formative experiences to the political leadership stage offers almost a cheat code for interpreting the habits of post-civil war political leaders.

In the final two chapters, the author successively examines the fundamental obstacles to Somali state-building and proposes an alternative course through what he calls a Comprehensive Critical Perspective. He begins by unpacking the established features of Somali political culture, including its various forms of elite politics, before turning to a critique of the 4.5 political system which he argues was conceived as a temporary arrangement but has since morphed into a seemingly permanent obstacle to state-building.

Since political legitimacy is acquired through clan affiliation, it can be inferred from the author that Somali politics is naturally a zero-sum contest among clans to prevent the realisation of a unified political order and a “legitimate government with control over Somali territory.” To address this five-decade-old conundrum, the author proposes an Inclusive Reconciliation Framework (IRF) built upon multiple layers of reconciliation: society and state, political elites, clans, and the reorganisation of traditional authority.

The merit of these final two chapters is that they implicitly reject dominant narratives that portray Somalia’s protracted political turmoil as evidence of a society predisposed to endless feuding. Instead, they suggest that the crisis reflects a society whose elites are continuously and painstakingly negotiating the political order under which their society wishes to govern itself.

From this perspective, what might be read as a failure to establish durable political stability is only a succession of elite-driven political experiments, from republican democracy at independence, to revolutionary socialism to the prevailing orders of political Islam and clannism. This repeated making and unmaking Somali political culture contrasts with many African societies whose political orders are frozen in the institutional conceptions inherited from colonial rule.

The ultimate implication is that Somali governance has, to date, been elite-driven. However, given this fluid nature from the constant dialogue, perhaps the next experiment must come from below: a popular revolution.

On a critical note, the book lacks charm. Ordinarily, works of this nature project an unmistakably discernible intellectual orientation.

Some are primarily academic and draw on wide-ranging literature. They also engage contrasting perspectives purely to inform readers and allow them to develop independent opinions to arrive at their own conclusions on the subject.

Others are argumentative and are built around a central thesis that the author seeks to establish as the only correct one through carefully marshalled evidence. This book fits neither.

In some places, it reads like a rigorous academic study. In others, it assumes the character of an argumentative work.

Although the two may not be mutually exclusive, the author does not reconcile them into a coherent intellectual spine. This makes it difficult for the reader to feel the soul of the book.

The book also suffers from information overload without equivalent precision. There is unnecessary repetition of ideas, arguments and evidence although the author acknowledges and justifies this in the introduction.

At times, concepts come across as hodgepodges without a clear or logical arrangement. Again, ambitious questions and debates are introduced without sufficient elaboration.

For instance, at one point, the author asks: “What is the difference between the Islamic and secular perspectives on leadership?” Instead of deploying a thorough comparative analysis commensurate with the weight of the question, he gives only one distinction before drifting into a three-paragraph monologue on the exemplary conduct of Prophet Muhammad. Similarly, the debate on empiricism and rationalism in Western democracies, which the author admires and claims “adhere to principles that mirror the ethical precepts advocated by Islam” is left hanging.

On customary law, the author screams a strikingly lopsided romanticism about its incorporation into state law. First, Somali customary law lacks a historical precedent as a legal framework governing a precolonial organised polity, which would have made its adoption at the modern state level more straightforward.

Understandably, this limitation is partly attributable to the tribal fragmentation of Somali society that impeded the development of an elaborate and universally recognised body of customary law. Perhaps one exception is the Issa, whose “xeer” was codified only recently.

Even this, because the codification relied on individual recollections, it may not have fully preserved the original contents which boils down Somali customary laws as insufficient. The central question, therefore, is this: if Somali customary law exists largely as fragmented bodies of practice rather than as a sufficiently comprehensive legal framework, how can it be incorporated alongside the well-established body of Islamic law?

The complication becomes even more glaring when we consider the Somali society’s socioeconomic divisions among nomadic pastoralists, sedentary agriculturalists, and coastal dwellers, with the latter containing substantial non-Somali populations. The first layer of complication is how to reconcile the differing customary conceptions of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists?

Secondly, how would the unfamiliarity of non-Somali populations in Somalia with traditional Somali customary laws be addressed? Moreover, customary laws themselves, ironically, do not necessarily embody the principles of inclusive governance.

Some clans consider themselves superior to others, while the interpretation of the contents of “xeer” remains an exclusive patriarchal domain to effectively exclude Somali womenfolk from decision-making. Does this not mean that Somali xeer falls short of the basic prerequisites of modern civic governance?

It was therefore unwise for the author to invoke Somali customary laws uncritically before examining their strengths and limitations.

The author’s emphatic attribution of Ogaden War as a proximate cause of Somalia’s state collapse is not entirely accurate. Across the world and throughout history, countries have gone to war for various reasons, yet war itself has not necessarily led to state collapse.

Egypt, for instance, fought wars over causes comparable to Somalia’s, while neighbouring Ethiopia fought Eritrea in the 1998-2,000 war. Neither country collapsed as a consequence of war with another state.

The secret has been initiating an all-encompassing post-war rehabilitation. In Egypt, it was the Infitah or Open Door Policy formulated in Sadat’s 1974 “October Paper.” Had Nasser been alive after 1973, it is doubtful that post-war Egypt would have been on stable footing as it is today.In Ethiopia, the post-war Tehadso or renewal campaign, its embrace of the “developmental state” model and the demobilisation of 100,000 soldiers.

In Somalia’s case, therefore, the principal issue that proved consequential was the failure to mount post-war rehabilitation and not the war itself. Did the war condemn Somalia to Ethiopia’s permanent enmity? If Ethiopia had opposed the very birth of the Somali Republic from the outset, it is absurd to assume it would ever accept its existence, even if Siad Barre or any other Somali leader had grovelled before it.

The tendency to overlook the consequential role of post-war rehabilitation while alternatively magnifying the Ogaden War as the cause for Somalia’s state collapse to be regretted in hindsight is an intellectual dishonesty characteristic of much of the post-civil-war Somali NGO practitioners, scholars, and commentators. While this tendency may stem primarily from a limited ability to engage in historical-comparative analysis, the possibility of a covert campaign of historical demoralisation through unsuspecting or even complicit Somali voices cannot be dismissed.

The apparent end goal of such is to indict the Somali political conscience through trapping post-Ogaden War generations in historical guilt that psychologically disarms prospective leaders and reduces them too apprehensive to seize the initiative to realise generational national aspirations. The author, knowingly or otherwise, reproduces this guilt-trapping intellectual crime.

Given that the author extensively uses ‘exceptional leaders’ which carries the tone of statesmanship, a critical note is the potential misattribution of “statesmen” to the leaders featured in the book. In my estimation, statesmanship rests on two primary attributes: conviction and nearly a demonic willpower to pursue it against all odds.

Steinberg in his acclaimed biography of Bismarck terms this quality the “sovereign self”— when the leader stands above all his countrymen not just in single-minded conviction and unshakeable willpower but also unparalleled intellect. The author himself recognises this attribute under the Great Man Theory that accords potential leaders innate qualities distinguishing them “from the general populace.” All other theories, to my assumption, are secondary to this particular one.

But the thin line between a statesman and a dictator is their respective motivations: the former driven by conviction which can make him overbearing in his single-minded pursuit of a greater purpose while the latter, by greed and shallow self-aggrandisement.

Measured against these attributes, whether Somalia ever had a statesman is more doubtful than certain, let alone whether the three cited leaders were truly “exceptional.” Of the three, Abdullahi and Abdirizak, despite their other positive qualities, lacked the uncompromising disposition of statesmen for having to compromise the democratic ideals they professed and pledged to uphold. This is evident in their subsequent reconciliation with and public service under the autocratic socialist regime.

Aden Adde, meanwhile, though more principled than the other two, lacked the political assertiveness necessary for statesmanship, a deficiency that likewise calls his statesmanship credentials into question. Moreover, none of the three appears to have possessed the extraordinary intellect of a sovereign self nor even academically accomplished.

In truth, Somalia’s independence generation derives stature from the historical significance of the era in which they lived, not from exceptional leadership qualities that would distinguish them as statesmen.

Finally, the author employs the term “Somali-inhabited” in reference to the territorial objectives of Greater Somalia. The appropriate term should have been “Somali territories.” The difference is the emphasis.

The former conveys demographic presence in a particular geography while the latter implies territorial ownership. Think of it this way.

Minnesota is home to 100,000 Somali inhabitants, perhaps ten times larger than Gunagado in Jarar. For accuracy, Minnesota is Somali-inhabited while Gunagado is Somali territory.

This distinction presupposes that habitation can be terminated any time whereas territorial ownership is an eternal right. The implications of clumsily deploying such an erroneous term similar to the Ogaden War guilt-trap is that it reinforces the age-old Habesha imperialist narratives which have long portrayed the Somali people in the Horn of Africa as wandering nomads with no enduring attachment to any territory.

Aden M. Ismail

Email: [email protected]

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Aden is a graduate of International Studies at the University of Nairobi’s Department of Diplomacy and International Studies (DDIS), with academic and professional interests in diplomacy, international security, and strategic studies.”