MOGADISHU, SOMALIA – Villa Somalia is buying a better story in Washington. Filings under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act lay it out. They show the presidency signed a year-long deal with an American lobbying firm. The aim is to promote President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and lift Somalia’s image abroad. It charges 44,000 dollars a month. That spending comes while lawmakers say his term has expired, while al-Shabaab patrols the capital’s edge, and while foreign support for the war drains away. So the contract raises a sharp question about where Mogadishu’s money and attention now go.
What the Lobbying Firm Was Hired to Do
The paperwork is specific. According to Garowe Online, Villa Somalia signed with Arsenal Government and Public Affairs Group on September 10, 2025. The lobbying firm agreed to arrange meetings between Somali officials and the U.S. administration. It also promised media chances to sell Hassan Sheikh’s policies during the Trump era.
The price is public too. The firm receives 44,000 dollars a month, paid three months at a time in advance. Over a year, that adds up to more than half a million dollars. On top of that, the government covers reasonable work expenses. For a state that leans on donors for basic services, the sum is striking.
The deal has already produced results. The filing says the firm set up a television interview for Hassan Sheikh on Newsmax, aired on October 15, 2025. That segment focused on security cooperation between Somalia and the United States. In short, the money bought airtime and access, not roads or soldiers.
A Familiar Name and a Firm Denial
One name drew extra notice. The lobbying firm listed Roger Stone, a longtime associate of President Trump, in its outreach. That link would give the effort a direct line into Trump’s circle. Yet the claim is contested, and Stone rejects it.
Stone has pushed back hard. He told Drop Site News that seeing his name on the filing took him by surprise. He said he had met the Somali ambassador but declined to represent the government, and that his lawyers demanded the reference be removed. So the paperwork and the man now tell different stories.
That gap matters for readers weighing the news. The filing is a legal document, yet a named adviser disputes his role in it. We report the claim and the denial side by side, because the record is not settled. The lobbying firm calls him part of its team; he calls that a mistake. Villa Somalia, for its part, did not immediately comment on the disclosure.
Paying for Image While the Term Is Disputed
The timing is what stings. Days before the filing surfaced, members of both federal houses told Hassan Sheikh his mandate had run out. As Garowe Online reported, the lawmakers said his four-year term lapsed on May 15, 2026, and urged a lawful handover. The Somali Digest covered that constitutional gambit and the fight it set off.
Against that backdrop, the optics are awkward. A president whose own parliament questions his legitimacy is paying a foreign lobbying firm to burnish his standing abroad. Critics see a leader shoring up outside approval while skipping the harder work of consensus at home. Supporters counter that every government lobbies, and that Somalia needs friends in Washington.
Optics Over a Collapsing Front
The security picture makes the spending look worse. On the western edge of Mogadishu, residents told the Somali Guardian that al-Shabaab fighters patrol their streets after dark. By day the government calls the capital safer than it has been in decades. By night the militants move freely, according to those accounts.
Foreign help is fading at the same time. Washington has moved to end its funding for the UN office that supplies the African Union force. The Somali Digest examined that step in its look at how al-Shabaab feeds on Mogadishu’s political chaos. So the state is losing logistics for the war just as the lobbying firm collects its retainer. That contrast is exactly what the opposition wants voters to see.
The Federalism Backdrop
Puntland reads the contract through its own long feud. Its president, Said Deni, has accused Mogadishu of trying to destabilize his state. The Somali Digest traced that campaign in Mogadishu’s plan to destabilize Puntland. From Garowe’s view, foreign backing lets a centralizing president ignore the states and delay a fair vote.
Turkiye sits in the same argument. Opposition figures have long said Ankara props up Hassan Sheikh and tilts the field toward one camp. Now a U.S. lobbying firm joins that list of outside patrons. For federalists, each foreign deal buys the center more room to resist reform.
What the Contract Really Buys
Strip away the noise, and the purchase is narrow. The lobbying firm can win Hassan Sheikh a friendly interview, a meeting, or a softer headline in Washington. It cannot win him a term the lawmakers accept, a capital the militants fear, or states that trust the center. Those things are not for sale.
Still, the spending tells its own story. A government under pressure has chosen to invest in image at a moment of real danger. The lobbying firm will keep filing its disclosures, and the checks will keep clearing each quarter. Whether that buys Hassan Sheikh anything beyond a headline is the question his critics will keep asking.
The weeks since have tested that retainer. Washington announced on 1 July that it would block UN funding for the African Union mission, and sources say it has also opposed releasing World Bank budget support to Mogadishu without a political settlement. Kenya turned back two of Hassan Sheikh’s senior officials at Nairobi airport over the same period. Whatever the lobbying firm files in Washington each quarter, the decisions that carry weight have gone the other way.
