Opinion - A Leader Who Belongs to Everyone: Searching for Somalia’s Missing National Figure

Philosopher Edgar Morin once said, “We must accept division among all.”

Though the phrase echoes a mathematical metaphor, it also captures a profound truth about leadership, justice, and political responsibility. In mathematics, some numbers can be divided by many others without losing their essence; in politics, some leaders are similarly accepted by all—figures whose presence does not alienate, exclude, or deepen fractures. These leaders become the common denominators of their societies.

Somalia’s central question today is simple yet unresolved: Do we have a leader who truly “belongs to everyone”? Or are we still governed by “prime numbers”—leaders who divide only by themselves, representing narrow groups rather than the nation?

For more than three decades, Somalia has remained trapped in a broken political equation. The crisis has not been the absence of people, but the absence of one person capable of rising above clan calculations and personal rivalries. Presidents have often acted as clan patrons rather than national statesmen. Opposition groups have formed alliances based not on shared vision but shared hostility to government. Federal states have drifted toward detachment, and each new federal administration collapses before achieving stability because it is built on dominance, not consensus.

What Somalia lacks—and urgently needs—is not a “neutral” leader in the superficial sense of neutrality, but a fair leader: someone aligned with the public good, yet belonging to no faction; one who sees the nation as greater than the clan, the constitution as greater than individuals, and the opposition as a democratic necessity rather than an enemy. A leader empowered by institutions, not over institutions.

The demand for such a figure stems from an increasingly dangerous political polarization. Rival power centers in Mogadishu, tensions between federal and state authorities, and widening gaps between government and opposition have made national cohesion fragile. Somalia can no longer be governed through the logic of winners and losers. Its future requires a logic of inclusion, representation, and shared ownership of the state.

Somalis are tired of leaders who divide the nation more than they unite it. They want a president who can visit every corner of the country without being seen as an outsider; one who applies one standard for all citizens—based on need, not loyalty. They long for a leader who symbolizes a clean break from old conflicts, not a continuation of them.

But what makes a leader one who “belongs to everyone”?

It begins with moral legitimacy—the kind of legitimacy that cannot be purchased or staged. It is the legitimacy that makes people trust a leader before even reading his manifesto. It demands inner reconciliation, a leader free from the psychology of revenge or historical grudges. It requires courage—to speak when truth is necessary and to remain silent when silence prevents escalation. It calls for a vision broad enough to encompass all Somalis, one shaped through consultation, not crafted in isolation.

A unifying leader must also maintain an independent foreign policy—neither succumbing to regional axes nor turning Somalia into a bargaining chip.

For decades, Somalia has been governed by “prime numbers”: leaders who resist partnerships, monopolize legitimacy, and treat dissent as something to silence, not understand. This is the core of the crisis. Somalia does not need another prime number—it needs a shared number.