Secret Deal: Deni Promised to Recognize Somaliland in Return for 2026 Election Support

Ahmed Cilal, senior advisor to President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has alleged that Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni and Somaliland opposition leader Abdirahman Irro held secret talks aimed at securing Somaliland’s support for Deni’s 2026 presidential campaign. In return, Deni is said to have promised recognition of Somaliland’s independence if elected.

This explosive claim, if true, would mark an unprecedented political gamble—one that could fracture Somalia’s unity and reshape the geopolitical fault lines of the Horn of Africa.

According to high-level sources close to Villa Somalia, the political orchestration behind this alleged pact goes far beyond domestic actors. Behind the scenes, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is accused of engineering and financing this strategy—part of a broader regional agenda that mirrors its destabilizing interventions in Sudan, Libya, Yemen, and Syria. Somali officials believe that the Emir of the UAE himself is backing Deni’s campaign with the intent to fragment Somalia’s sovereignty, weaken its central government, and entrench Emirati influence through proxy actors.

“This isn’t just an election plot,” one intelligence source told HornPulse. “It’s a foreign-designed operation to derail Somalia’s stability and future as a unified state.”