Opinion- A Nation Divided by Blood Cannot Be Governed by Law

No constitution can unite a country whose people are divided by blood. No law can create justice where kinship dictates loyalty, and no government can stand on foundations built of clan. Somalia’s greatest crisis today is not merely political — it is moral and civilizational. The state struggles not because it lacks institutions or resources, but because it is governed by identities that predate the idea of a nation. The law seeks to bind what the tribe continues to separate.

For more than three decades, Somalia has tried to rebuild a state from the ruins of civil war. Ministries have been reconstituted, parliaments convened, constitutions drafted, and armies trained — yet the spirit of the nation remains fractured. The tribe, once a shield for solidarity and survival, has turned into a political weapon that divides authority, monopolizes power, and reshapes loyalty. What should have been a nation under law has become a federation of rival kinships competing for dominance, influence, and privilege.

The problem is not the tribe itself. Every Somali belongs to one, large or small. It is part of our social fabric, our oral history, and our identity. The danger lies in the politicized tribe — the tribe that moved from being a source of belonging to being an instrument of power. Once politics became measured by lineage and loyalty by blood, the modern Somali state ceased to function as a national entity. It became a network of private interests disguised as public institutions.

The tragedy is that tribalism has now permeated nearly every organ of the state — the government, parliament, judiciary, the army, police, intelligence services, and even those agencies publicly described as “independent.” Nearly all have turned into clan-based blocs rather than national institutions built on merit, integrity, and professional competence. The line between public duty and personal allegiance has blurred so completely that even the most basic functions of the state — justice, accountability, and service — are filtered through the lens of kinship.

When the central government collapsed three deacds ago, the absence of authority allowed clans to fill the vacuum. What emerged was not community solidarity, but the weaponization of identity. Warlords, businessmen, and politicians alike discovered that clan affiliation could be used to legitimize control and mobilize followers. National vision gave way to tribal arithmetic; justice became a privilege of lineage. Even after the re-establishment of federal institutions, this mindset persisted. The so-called “4.5 formula,” which divides power among major clans, was introduced as a compromise to maintain balance — yet in practice, it institutionalized division. It made representation a hereditary right, and politics a permanent negotiation of shares, not ideas.

The result has been predictable. Every public office is contested not on merit but on ethnic belonging. Every political debate descends into a quarrel of identity. Policies are drafted not to solve problems but to preserve balances of power. Corruption finds protection in kinship, and accountability is dismissed as tribal bias. Under these conditions, the state cannot act as a neutral arbiter of justice because it is itself an arena of competition between clans disguised as governance.

No nation can progress when the rule of law serves the rule of blood. Tribal logic creates paralysis in public life. It breeds injustice and deepens inequality. Citizens stop seeing themselves as Somalis and begin to see only their lineage. The question is no longer what the state owes to its people, but what it owes to my people. This mentality erodes the foundation of citizenship and turns every national decision into a local grievance.

Even leaders with good intentions become prisoners of this structure. A minister who acts independently is accused of betraying his clan. A reformer who resists corruption is branded as targeting another group. Accountability vanishes because no individual can be held responsible without provoking collective anger. Politics becomes a zero-sum game — where every victory for one clan is perceived as a loss for another, and compromise is seen as weakness.

This is why Somalia’s politics often feels like a perpetual negotiation between rival bloodlines, not a dialogue between citizens. The government behaves like a council of elders dividing spoils, and the opposition mirrors it — one tribal coalition confronting another. What could have been a democratic process turns instead into a controlled rotation of privileges. The very idea of the state — as an impersonal, moral authority serving all — fades behind the tribal curtain.