President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's Independence Day Address: Somaliland, the EU, and a Nation That Refused to Disappear

MOGADISHU, 26 June 2026 (SONNA) — There was a moment in President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's Independence Day address on Thursday night when he asked his audience to consider a simple question: who would have imagined Mogadishu would turn out this way?

He was standing at the Banadir Regional Administration headquarters, speaking to thousands of Somalis who had gathered for the official 66th Independence Day celebrations, with tens of thousands more watching on 16 public screens across the capital's districts. Behind him was the flag. Around him was a city that, not long ago, many had written off entirely.

By the time he finished speaking, he had addressed three distinct audiences on three distinct matters: his own people, the people of the north, and the European Union.

A City That Refused to Disappear

The President opened by commending the Independence Week Organising Committee and the Banadir Regional Administration for the scale and quality of the celebrations, which he said would continue for days. He then turned to the country itself.

He asked those living in despair, those who have lost faith in Somalia's future, to look at what was happening around them that night: the mass student graduation celebrations at Daljirka Dahsoon earlier in the day, the crowds now filling the capital's streets, the city that offers services at three in the morning and houses international brands on streets that were once too dangerous to walk.

Those who said Somalia would never rise again, the President said, did not know the Somali people. They did not know what Somalis are capable of when they decide to come together and dream big.

He spoke about his own past as a teacher in a country with no functioning government institutions, no classroom resources, and parents who sacrificed everything to educate their children. He said the product of that sacrifice is now visible in the young people waving the Somali flag across Mogadishu. Today there are strong institutions. There are scholarships. There are universities across the country. The President said Somalia has proven that a nation cannot be built through violence. It can only be built when the people make a collective decision to move forward together.

He said Somalia stands at a critical juncture, and that it is the Somali people themselves who must decide the direction of their future. If the country avoids the setbacks and internal divisions that slow progress, he said, this nation can move even faster.

A Direct Address to the North

The most consequential section of the speech was directed at the people of Somaliland. The President acknowledged their long and proud history, noting that the northern regions were at the forefront of the fight for Somali independence and played a central role in the liberation of the nation. He said he believes there remain many in those regions who share the same convictions as their fathers and who think with a sound mind.

The President said in an era when countries and peoples across the world are forming unions and coming together, it is not wise to think of division. He said separation is not a solution.

He noted that the northern regions were the first to achieve independence, and that they made the noble decision to seek the liberation of the rest of Somalia and later unite with the south. Whatever challenges came after that union, he said, can be resolved through dialogue. His government remains ready to talk and to address any grievances the northern regions hold.

In a significant admission, the President acknowledged that previous approaches to convincing the northern people to reunite had not worked. He said his government would go back to the drawing board and develop a new strategy, one that may be more acceptable to the people of the north.

Somalia Pushes Back on the European Union

The President also used the occasion to respond to a recent European Union announcement restricting visas for Somali passport holders. The EU had cited Somalia's alleged refusal to accept the return of Somali nationals deported from European countries as the basis for the restriction.

The President rejected that characterisation directly. He said Somalia has not refused to receive its own people. Somalia's position, he explained, is that due process must be followed before any individual is accepted as a returnee, because many people who claimed Somali identity when seeking refuge in Europe are not in fact Somali citizens. Somalia will gladly receive any verified Somali national, he said, but will not accept the return of individuals whose Somali nationality cannot be confirmed.

The rebuke, delivered on Independence Day before the nation and broadcast across the country's public screens, signals that Mogadishu intends to defend its sovereign position on the matter clearly and publicly. Somalia marked 66 years of independence on Thursday. On the evidence of the President's address, it is doing so with a voice that expects to be heard.