In June 1955, Hussein was sent to the United Nations, where he presented a petition on the SYL's behalf. He was elected the party's Secretary General a few months later, and became a Member of Parliament for the Nugal District of the Mudug region in 1959. That same year, Hussein elected to the National Assembly in 1959. During this period, he was also the president of the Higher Institute of Law and Economics and would later go on to become the president of the University Institute. In the first post-independence government of Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, Hussein served as Minister of Interior from 1960 to 1962, and Minister of Public Works and Communications from 1962 to 1964.