London (PP Editorial) — In April 2023, during indiscriminate shelling of Laascaanood by Somaliland Administration forces, Nimco Ali OBE, co-founder and then Chief Executive of the Five Foundation, responded on X to a statement issued by fifteen international partners of Somalia, including the United Kingdom. Those partners called on the Somaliland administration to ensure “an immediate and unconditional cessation of hostilities” and the separation of forces.
Instead, Nimco Ali wrote that “Somaliland is under attack from a terrorist network” and that “the international community needs to support Somaliland against terrorism.” In doing so, she repeated the Somaliland administration’s false claim that its forces were fighting terrorists in Laascaanood.
However, that narrative was questioned by independent observers. Reporting by The Guardian quoted Nicolas Delaunay, East and Southern Africa Project Director at the International Crisis Group, who said that “Somaliland had not provided concrete evidence of al-Shabaab’s involvement.” He added: “What Somaliland is probably trying to do by saying there are terrorists involved in the fighting is to discredit their opponent. It is conflating the issue in a sense and hiding what the political issues are and what the local grievances are.” The Guardian also reported that the fighting displaced tens of thousands of civilians and caused widespread destruction of homes, hospitals and business premises.
The issue is not whether charity leaders enjoy freedom of expression. They do. The question is whether a co-founder and chief executive of a UK charity should publicly intervene in a conflict while closely identified with that charity.
The Charity Commission’s guidance (CC9) states that “campaigning and political activity can be legitimate and valuable activities for charities to undertake.” However, it also makes clear that “political activity… must be undertaken by a charity only in the context of supporting the delivery of its charitable purposes.” Most importantly, trustees are warned that “trustees must not allow the charity to be used as a vehicle for the expression of the political views of any individual trustee or staff member.”
Those principles raise legitimate questions. Was this intervention connected to the Five Foundation’s charitable purposes? Was the serious allegation of a “terrorist network” supported by a sound evidence base? Did the trustees consider the reputational and governance risks before such a statement was made on such a conflict?
Asking these questions is not an attempt to silence opinion. It is precisely the kind of scrutiny that UK charity law expects when senior charity leaders, particularly founders and chief executives, take sides in a conflict.
© Puntland Post, 2026