Opinion – Sovereignty Revisited: A Response to Dr. Mohamud Uluso

 Editor’s Note:

This article is published in response to a counter-argument previously published by Dawan Africa, which challenged key positions advanced in the author’s original opinion piece. In the interest of constructive and transparent debate, the author responds here to the critique, clarifying their arguments and addressing points of contention raised in the earlier response.

Dr. Ulusow’s comment raises important concerns about Somalia’s unfinished constitutional order. However, it ultimately rests on a fundamental conflation between institutional weakness and constitutional authority, leading to conclusions that are legally unsound and potentially destabilizing.

First, acknowledging that Somalia’s federal system is incomplete does not negate the binding force of the Provisional Federal Constitution. Article 54 is not an abstract aspiration; it is operative law. The fact that constitutional review is unfinished or institutions are weak does not suspend constitutional allocations of power. If incompleteness were a license to disregard constitutional competencies, the entire federal order would collapse into discretionary politics.

Second, Article 53 does not “limit” Article 54 in the manner suggested. It establishes procedural obligations of consultation, not a transfer or sharing of treaty-making capacity. Consultation is a constitutional duty, but it does not transform Federal Member States into autonomous foreign-policy actors. Failure by the Federal Government to consult may constitute a constitutional violation—but the remedy for violation is compliance or adjudication, not unilateral substitution by FMS.

Third, the invocation of international law and the Montevideo Convention is misplaced. Somalia’s international legal personality is undisputed. Limited territorial control, peacekeeping presence, or internal conflict does not fragment treaty-making authority under international law. If effectiveness were the test Dr. Ulusow implies, many UN Member States emerging from conflict would cease to exist legally. International law does not recognize subnational units as foreign-relations actors merely because the central government is imperfect.

Fourth, Article 142 preserves existing FMS powers within the constitutional framework; it does not constitutionalize parallel sovereignties or authorize independent external agreements. Transitional protection cannot be read as a delegation of foreign relations—an area explicitly reserved to the Federal Government.

Fifth, criticisms of selective enforcement, executive overreach, or lack of parliamentary scrutiny are governance failures, not jurisdictional reallocations. One cannot cure federal misconduct by endorsing unconstitutional conduct at the state level. That logic replaces constitutionalism with retaliation.

Finally, the claim that sovereignty “reverts” to states or communities when institutions are weak has no constitutional basis. Article 46 vests sovereignty in the people of Somalia collectively, exercised through constitutional institutions—not through fragmentation of state authority along political or regional lines.

My argument does not deny the need for consultation, cooperation, or constitutional completion. It correctly insists, however, that foreign relations cannot be decentralized by default, frustration, or political bargaining. Cooperative federalism requires fidelity to constitutional roles, not their erosion.

Somalia’s path forward lies in enforcing the Constitution as it exists, completing it where it is unfinished, and correcting federal overreach through law—not by normalizing parallel diplomacies that undermine statehood itself.