Abdullah Muhammad al-Naqbi was sworn in on March 17 as director of the United Arab Emirates Trade Office in Somaliland. This appointment sparked immediate controversy due to contradictory messages from Somaliland’s official Twitter channels. Somaliland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that the UAE had appointed an ambassador to Somaliland, while Somaliland’s President Muse Bihi Abdi stated that the UAE had appointed a representative to the autonomous region. Notwithstanding the botched announcement of his appointment, Naqbi pledged to further consolidate the UAE’s “brotherly relations” with Somaliland, and DP World immediately launched plans to expand its flagship Berbera Port.

Naqbi’s appointment was greeted with sharply divided reactions in Somalia and Somaliland. In Mogadishu, his arrival was regarded as a UAE tactic to destabilize Somalia and undermine its sovereignty. A prominent Somali analyst told Al-Monitor that “the UAE typically uses Somali regions to pressure the central government.” The analyst contended that “the UAE took this step at this late hour in [Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo Mohamed's] term” to accrue political influence ahead of Somalia’s elections and “help the Somali opposition defeat Farmaajo.”

This perspective largely aligns with Somali Information Minister Osman Dubbe’s strident rhetoric toward the UAE. On Feb. 21, Dubbe accused Abu Dhabi of delegitimizing the Farmaajo government and warned that the UAE wants Somalia to be beset with “displacement, violence and backwardness” like Yemen and Libya. The Somali government’s sensitivity to UAE engagement with Somalia’s autonomous regions has been further amplified by intra-regional divisions over the still unscheduled Somali elections. Sharp regional cleavages were triggered by the expiration of Farmaajo’s term on Feb. 8 and Jubaland's and Puntland’s refusal to accept the terms set by Farmaajo for Somalia’s forthcoming elections. As Puntland has close relations with the UAE and urged Abu Dhabi to maintain its security operations in Somalia in April 2018, Somali officials fear that the UAE could capitalize on Puntland’s resistance to Farmaajo to advance its own interests.

The reaction in Hargeisa was predictably much more optimistic. The Somaliland Chronicle hailed Naqbi’s arrival as the latest in a string of diplomatic successes for President Bihi, which began with Taiwan’s establishment of bilateral relations with Somaliland in September 2020. Yusuf Gabobe, a prominent political analyst in Somaliland, told Al-Monitor that the UAE’s appointment of a career diplomat to Somaliland “will increase the likelihood of other countries joining the UAE and the other eight that already maintained embassy-equivalent offices in Hargeisa.” Beyond advancing projects such as the Port of Berbera, the Berbera corridor and health facilities, Gabobe argued that Naqbi’s appointment could help expand UAE-Somaliland cooperation on securing Red Sea and Gulf of Aden maritime routes from terrorism and piracy.