A Government With One Foot Out the Door: Somalia's Foreign Passport Crisis

It took a Kenyan airport officer to do what Somalia's own constitution could not. He was not alone. On July 26, State Minister at the Presidency Abshir Bukhaari — a former First Deputy Speaker of Somalia's Senate — was also denied entry at the same airport and placed on a return flight to Mogadishu after immigration officials raised questions about his travel documents. Neither the Kenyan nor the Somali government has officially confirmed the reasons behind the incident. Somalia's Foreign Ministry summoned Kenya's ambassador for consultations the following day. The embarrassments forced President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's hand. In July, he issued an ultimatum: all cabinet ministers must surrender their foreign passports or resign. On August 3, Jibril became the first senior official to comply, formally handing his Kenyan passport, national ID, and birth certificate to the Kenyan Embassy in Mogadishu. Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre followed with a directive requiring all officials to travel exclusively on Somali passports during state business. The crackdown is real. But it is also late — and incomplete. The scale of the problem Somalia's dual-citizen governing class is not a new phenomenon. It is a defining feature of how the state has operated for over two decades. According to Wakiil, the independent parliamentary accountability initiative, 105 out of 275 Federal Parliament members — 38 percent — held foreign passports in the 10th Parliament in 2017. Many of those same MPs continue to serve today. Sadaq John and Abdirahman Abdi Shakur — both British citizens whose children live in the United Kingdom — joined as MPs in 2022. From 2000 until 2022, every Prime Minister appointed across Somalia's transitional and federal governments held dual citizenship from a Western country — Canadian, Norwegian, Swedish. The current Prime Minister, Hamza Abdi Barre, is the first exception. Within Mogadishu's political community, factions are informally known by the Western cities where their members spent their years of exile: the "American Camp," the "Norwegian Colony," the "Canadian Corner." These are not jokes. They describe real networks of shared contacts and shared exit options. The pattern extends to the most senior levels. Ali Mohamed Omar, widely known as Ali Balcad, serves as State Minister of Foreign Affairs. A former IBM engineer and property owner in North Carolina, he has not renounced his US citizenship. When contacted by reporters, he did not deny it. "My work serves Somalia's legitimate interests as recognised by the international community," he said. "Any suggestion that this conflicts with my American citizenship is misinformed." Governing from the airport hotel The foreign passport is not just a travel document. It shapes how officials physically govern. "They do not go to the neighbourhoods to see how civilians live their lives day by day," one employee at a Mogadishu ministry told this reporter, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They only come to town after midnight, when the streets are half empty — and even then they have a lot of military guards. They are normally between Villa Somalia and the airport area." A second ministry employee described something more troubling. State ministers and deputy ministers who hold dual citizenship do not come to the ministry at all. They run their day-to-day operations from airport hotels — official stamps, documents, and administrative tools all relocated to the hotel room. "Only a secretary is at the ministry office," this second source said. "She is there to oversee the daily operations — who comes, who goes in the ministry building." In December 2022, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud himself acknowledged the broader absence. His government's biometric attendance system showed only 1,500 of more than 5,000 registered civil servants were present at their offices. He called the rest ghost workers. Seventy percent of the civil service payroll — funded by World Bank and IMF budget support from European and American taxpayers — were drawing salaries without showing up. The escape hatch in action The case of Salah Ahmed Jama — who simultaneously served as Deputy Prime Minister and Senator — is the starkest example of how the foreign passport enables impunity. In October 2024, Somalia's Senate Speaker announced that Jama had been formally dismissed from the Upper House for failing to attend four consecutive sessions without explanation. An investigative committee found he had been receiving salaries and allowances for two years without attending. Before entering government, Jama built his entire career in Ottawa, Canada, as a researcher and teaching assistant at Carleton University. Within three days, the political class reversed the decision. The Senate Speaker rescinded the dismissal. Jama kept his seat. He kept the salary. No one returned the money. Historically, no Somali official has ever been forced to repay funds obtained during documented misconduct. "They only return when there is something to negotiate," one senior civil society monitor in Mogadishu told this reporter. What the crackdown cannot fix Somalia's 2026 constitution bars the President, Prime Minister, Speaker of Parliament, and Chief Justice from holding dual citizenship. It requires formal renunciation. It even prohibits top officials from being married to foreign nationals — a spousal clause with no precedent in Somalia's constitutional history. But the crackdown has clear limits. Parliament remains largely untouched — MPs may hold dual citizenship; only those seeking the Speaker's role face a ban. The advisory and technical class inside Villa Somalia and every major ministry is not covered. American and British passport holders shape national security strategy and communications. Canadian and Swedish passport holders run finance and legal affairs — because international donors, including the World Bank and IMF who fund their salaries of between $5,000 and $10,000 per month, prefer Western-credentialled professionals. Somalia ranked 179th out of 180 countries on Transparency International's 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index. The Somali passport ranks 99th globally on the Henley Passport Index, granting visa-free access to only 32 countries. For officials accustomed to moving freely between Mogadishu and London or Minneapolis, surrendering a Western passport is a real sacrifice. That is precisely why this structure will not dissolve because of a presidential ultimatum alone. The foreign passport will not disappear from Somalia's governing class. It will retreat one tier and hold. Because it does not just offer an exit — it opens doors. It enables visa-free travel to donor capitals. It builds credibility with international partners. For a government that depends on foreign aid for the vast majority of its budget, the foreign passport is not a liability. It is an asset. The Somali people deserve leaders who cannot leave. What they have, for now, is leaders who have been told to use a different travel document. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ismail Abukar is Co-founder and Chairperson of the Organization for Prisoners' Rights (OPR), an independent civil society organization based in Mogadishu, Somalia. He has conducted primary field research in Somalia for seven years covering prisoners' rights, enforced disappearances, press freedom, and electoral corruption. His investigations have been published by African Arguments: "The Disappeared" (June 2026) and "The Journalists Who Disappeared" (August 2026). He holds an MA in International Law and Human Rights from the University for Peace (UPEACE) and maintains an active ORCID record: 0009-0003-1435-3681.