Mogadishu (Somalia Today) — Somalia’s former president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known as Farmaajo, has launched his sharpest attack yet on President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, accusing him of lacking credibility and knowing little about either domestic or foreign policy.
The comments, made in a new interview, mark a major escalation by Farmaajo, who returned to Mogadishu on November 13 after years away from the capital. He has since re-emerged as one of the leading voices against the government’s election agenda.
“If you stand one day with one of two countries in conflict, and the next day with the other, as we are seeing now, then you have no credibility,” Farmaajo said. “And if you have no credibility, your country will not have credibility.”
He added, “Hassan knows nothing about foreign policy,nothing about domestic politics. He knows nothing about either.”
Villa Somalia did not immediately respond to a Somalia Today request for comment on Farmaajo’s remarks.
The former president did not name the countries he was referring to, but his remarks come as Somalia navigates a complex regional environment shaped by tensions with Ethiopia, Red Sea security concerns, Gulf rivalries and new diplomatic disputes over Somaliland, the breakaway region in northwestern Somalia.
Army claims
Farmaajo also defended his own record in office, presenting himself as a nationalist leader who rebuilt the Somali National Army after inheriting, he said, a demoralised and poorly supplied force from Hassan Sheikh’s first administration.
“Hassan Sheikh left me an army with no morale, no salaries, and soldiers being told to take $100 or leave,” he said. “But I left him a built army.”
He also accused Hassan Sheikh’s first government of leaving behind almost no military supplies.
“Hassan Sheikh did not leave me even one box of ammunition,” Farmaajo said. “We left him warehouses full of weapons.”
Farmaajo also raised the 2021 violence in Mogadishu, when tensions over his disputed mandate extension triggered armed confrontations in the capital, and questioned why Hassan Sheikh later reappointed General Odowaa Yusuf Raage as army chief.
Farmaajo said Hassan Sheikh had once accused Odowaa of involvement in an attack on former leaders, including Hassan Sheikh himself, during Farmaajo’s time in office.
“There is no greater shame than a grown, responsible man, of that age, who claims to have a PhD, being contradicted by what he said yesterday and what he says today,” Farmaajo said. “You ask yourself: he is enough opposition to himself, so why oppose him?”
Election row
The attack comes as Somalia’s political class is locked in a deepening dispute over how the next national elections should be held.
Hassan Sheikh’s government has pushed for universal suffrage, arguing that Somalia must move beyond the clan-based indirect model that has dominated national politics for decades.
The government points to local elections held in Mogadishu in December 2025, the capital’s first one-person, one-vote poll since 1969, as proof that direct voting can be gradually expanded.
But opposition figures, including former presidents and prime ministers, accuse the government of changing the political rules without consensus.
They say major constitutional and electoral reforms cannot succeed while key federal member states remain outside the process.
Puntland and Jubaland have opposed parts of the federal government’s constitutional agenda, deepening a long-running dispute over federalism, power-sharing and the balance of authority between Mogadishu and regional administrations.
In March, parliament approved constitutional changes that could extend the president’s term and delay planned elections, further inflaming opposition concerns.
Hassan Sheikh hailed the vote as a historic step towards ending Somalia’s long provisional constitutional period.
“Before God and the Somali people, we have committed to popular elections, and we shall deliver them,” he said.
Past crisis
Farmaajo’s criticism also revives scrutiny of his own record.
His four-year mandate expired in February 2021, but delayed elections pushed Somalia into one of its worst political crises in years.
Parliament later approved a two-year extension of his term, a move that alarmed international partners and triggered fierce opposition from political rivals.
The extension split sections of the security forces and led to armed clashes in Mogadishu, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee and raising fears that the capital could slide back into wider conflict.
Somali lawmakers later cancelled the extension, and Farmaajo handed Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble responsibility for leading the delayed electoral process.
That history has made Farmaajo’s criticism of Hassan Sheikh’s election plans politically sensitive, with government supporters accusing the former president of attacking a reform process after presiding over a mandate crisis of his own.
Security record
Farmaajo’s attack has also reopened debate over security in Mogadishu.
His presidency began months before Somalia’s deadliest militant attack, when a truck bomb tore through the capital’s busy Zoobe junction in October 2017, killing more than 500 people.
In December 2019, another truck bomb at a crowded Mogadishu checkpoint killed scores of people, including students, underscoring the fragility of security in the capital during his term.
Al-Shabaab also continued to strike hotels, checkpoints, government offices and military targets despite efforts to rebuild the army and increase pressure on the militant group.
Hassan Sheikh’s government, by contrast, has made improved security in Mogadishu one of its central political claims.
Deputy Prime Minister Salah Ahmed Jama said in September 2025 that the capital had “never been more secure” in the past decade, noting that the number of incidents had fallen despite the ongoing war against Al-Shabaab.
The government has also pointed to stronger patrols, the reopening of roads, more visible public life and the successful staging of direct local elections in Mogadishu as signs of progress, though Al-Shabaab remains capable of carrying out attacks in the capital.
