On Monday, a dear friend and colleague will launch his first book: Fahanka Awoodda 4.5: Isu-Beenguurka Siyaasadda Soomaalida by Mukhtar Qoransay. Mukhtar, an intentional and deeply principled public servant who conceived and drove a number of quiet but consequential reforms, brings through this book the same clarity of purpose that marked his years in government. Having read an advance copy, I believe it is among the most important contributions to Somali political thought in a generation. In 2000, delegates at the Arta conference in Djibouti adopted a clan-based power-sharing formula that we have since come to know simply as 4.5. More than a quarter-century later, this formula has evolved from an informal understanding into the embedded architecture of the state. It continues to dictate who sits in Parliament, who holds public office, and, ultimately, whose voice counts in full and whose counts only by half. This book confronts this reality head-on, asking why we accepted such an arrangement in the first place, and why so many continue to defend it today. Rather than offering a critique of a specific administration or political faction, Mukhtar has undertaken a rigorous study of power itself. And his central thesis is that power is neither brute force nor private property; it is a dynamic relationship between people that endures only so long as both sides consent to it. For me, the most illustrative passage in the book is the Somali story of Ina Sanweyne, with which Mukhtar opens his chapter on legitimacy. A man finds his lost camel in the herd of a feared and powerful neighbour, and two successive panels of elders, afraid of that neighbour, rule in the neighbours favour. It is only when the case comes before Ina Sanweyne, the wrongdoer's own in-law, that justice is done. He declares that justice knows no in-law, no clan, no son, no brother and no father, and orders the camel returned. As the tradition puts it, gar Ilaahay bay taqaan, tolnimo ma taqaan: justice knows God, not kinship. This story captures the book's central argument more powerfully than any theory it cites. Fear secured the first two rulings, yet neither carried any authority, whereas Ina Sanweyne's name became renowned because he ruled justly against his own. Power, Mukhtar argues, is neither won nor lost through brute force; rather, it rests on caddaalad, and it endures only as long as people feel that justice is being done. As Somalia once again navigates debates over mandates, electoral timelines and political formulas, the story of Ina Sanweyne poses the question we can no longer avoid: will those who hold authority rule like the first two panels, deferring to whoever is most powerful, or like Ina Sanweyne, upholding justice even when it falls against their own? Fahanka Awoodda 4.5 demands a wide readership, not only among those who have quietly accepted half a share for a quarter of a century, but especially among those who continue to benefit from it. #Somalia