By Faisal A. Roble

While this op-ed piece does not comprehensively appraise Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s rule in the last seven years, it does provide a cursory look at the missteps and dashed hopes that worsened the country’s structural problems.

Seven years ago, millions of Ethiopians, including the influential Diaspora community, welcomed Abiy Ahmed’s arrival to the political scene.  To a country waiting for a savior, he told its nationals in plain language that he was “the 7th king” to deliver on the biblical promise and “guide Ethiopia across the river.”

From a humble background, Abiy Ahmed was born to a Jimma Oromo Muslim family—the largest ethnic group with profound historical grievances. Sometime in his adult life, he converted from Islam to and joined the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), which for centuries claimed the lion’s share of Ethiopia’s dominant and official religion—Christianity.

Unsatisfied with EOTC, Mr. Ahmed once again left his church and joined the Pentecostal denomination, which is sucking membership out of the EOTC. The Pentecostal Faith of Abyi Ahmed grew from only 5 percent in 1970 to over 27 percent in 2024. In this regard, more belong to the new faith than EOTC, which was accepted into Aksum in the 4th century. In a short span of forty years, the PM cruised through three religious conversions.

In his sermons-like and polemic-filled speeches, PM Abiy utilizes religious phrases from the bible to win over his audiences. However, his actions are anything but consoling; they rarely bring peace of mind to the multitudes – cases in point are the atrocities committed under his watch and the displacement of thousands of residents in Addis Ababa for his beautification “corridor” project.

In his admission, he leads the country with his philosophy of “Medemer,” or “coming together.” This philosophy, homegrown as he argues, negates Western thoughts, while some of his cheerleaders endorsed it as an indomitable blueprint to “guide Ethiopia across the river”.

Abiy also blamed the country’s problems on the intelligentsia class’s tendency to adopt Western thoughts to address their national issues. Here, he refers to the 1960s and 1970s student activists who paid dearly to advocate for social justice, equality among ethnic groups, and democratization of the ancient empire. 

PM Abiy authored his “Medemer” without citing authoritative sources on any subject; he urged his countrymen to adopt his “Medemer” philosophy. A closer scrutiny of it is, however, reminiscent of Muammar Qaddafi’s “Green Book,” or Mputu Sese Seko’s short-lived “authenticité” philosophy.

Initially, PM Abiy seemed to have instilled hope among Ethiopians at home and abroad. He did so by largely appealing to the centrist forces. He mesmerized this group’s imaginations by reaching deep into what he termed Ethiopia’s “glorious history and heroes.”  He tried to glorify Emperor Menelik and revive the glorious days of Emperor Haile Selassie.

For a short period, it seemed as if PM Abiy found the perfect formula to win the undivided support of the empire’s core groups, mainly Amhara and Oromo, at the expense of the Tigre people. Certainly, he did this to appease the centrists, with the hidden agenda to use them in the crimes against humanity committed against the Tigre. He also threw red meat to his Oromo constituents and promised them this was the “Oromo time,” as encapsulated in the new Amharic lexicon of “terenienga.”

The “terenienga” concept holds that this is the time for the Oromo elite to rule. If this concept is coined out of the need for the Oromo elite to rule this time, who will be the next “tereniegna?” Are the Oromo willing to pass on to whom? If the Amhara elite promoted it as propaganda to associate Abiy’s crimes with the Oromo, whom do they expect to be the next “terenienga?” Identity politics is deeper in Ethiopia than meets the eye.

He understood the country was angry at the TPLF’s grip on power for more than two decades. To exploit the prevailing national sentiment, he skillfully exploited the pain of groups like Somalis who had immensely suffered under TPLF dominance.

While he showed leniency towards Mengistu Haile Mariam, PM Abiy made a monster out of  Meles Zenawi and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The genocidal and hate language targeted at the Tigre painted them as creatures to be wiped out. By broadbrashing them with the phrase of “ya qan jiib,’ or “the naked Hyena,” many hate-mongers, like decon Daniel Kibret, adviser to the PM were licensed to encourage vigilante crimes to kill, arrest Tigre men, and rape their women. Today there are about 120,000 rape survivors in Tigray.

Initially, PM Abiy was admired by those interested in Ethiopia’s affairs.  The hope was that the multitudes of this disparate country, with over 80 different ethnic groups brought together by a nineteenth-century conquest, would get a break. Many thought he was the one to deliver the political “mana” Ethiopians have been waiting for with patience. His predecessor, PM Haile Mariam Desalegn, another priest and politician in one persona, pronounced the coming of PM Abiy tantamount to a “divine intervention.” A well-known Diaspora activist kissed Abiy’s feet to show the ultimate respect while the PM visited the US in 2019.

The now-defunct  VOA News  Africa Program, led by Mr. Nuguse, took PM Abiy’s promises publicized and wrote, “In less than four months in office, Abiy has led a dramatic turnaround. Sweeping reforms have quelled dissent, boosted civil liberties, and begun to heal wounds from decades of ethnic tension and marginalization.”

In his own words in 2019, PM Abiy told the VOA, which by then had established a cozier relationship, that “My agenda is not to use certain groups. To attack certain groups. Or to push specific groups or oppress people. “What I am working on and my intention is to elevating Ethiopia.”

One year after uttering these bravado and pompous phrases, he started the 2020 war on Tigray. Contrary to his promises, he used Fano (Amhara) forces to fight against the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) alongside the Ethiopian National Defense Forces. Then he turned on Fano. Today, the land where Fano is carrying out a hit-and-run war for their “existential defense” is an Armageddon. Over 4.5 million kids no longer attend classes. Peasants stopped farming, and even churches and schools are not immune to Drone and jet bombardments. An equally devastating war has been taking place in the Oromo region since 2018, once Ethiopia’s breadbasket but home of a displaced multitude fed by donors.

PM Abiy’s early pompous words are haunting him; all the crimes thus far committed are codified and televised.  Now that all facts are out in the open, the  VOA’s team and their manager, Mr. Nugus, are being accused of serving “an autocrat.”

In hindsight, more disappointing is the unqualified enthusiasm of the donor community, which pampered the PM with cash and deadly weapons. The hitherto unknown 40-something-year-old leader was loved by NGOs, mainly Americans and Europeans stationed in the Horn of Africa, and influential Evangelical Christian groups. These groups, early on, started to praise the new leader; with gusto, they lobbied for him to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. And so did the Alfred Nobel Committee award him its coveted Nobel Prize. Today, many are wondering whether the Committee erred by acting too quickly.

From the get-go, I had my misgivings about PM Abiy and his “Medemer.” Early on, I felt that the Prime Minister was mixing religion with politics. In a multi-religious country where Muslims were considered second-class citizens for over 100 years, it was a matter of time before his own words would come back and haunt him. I also took note of his fake glorification of yesteryears’ imperial Ethiopia, contrasted with his Oromo-centric political view, and that did not sit well with me. 

In June 2018, while visiting Nairobi, I had an interview with the Somali Section of the BBC and criticized the Prime Minister and his tendency to prime Christianity in his speeches. Following that, I wrote an op-ed piece sharing how the Tigray community in Addis Ababa was on the edge by then. Some were already fleeing the town. With the blessing of the new government, Tigrian citizens were called by the derogatory name of “ya qan Jiib,” or “the daylight Hyena.” In that op-ed piece, I traced where such hate speech would end – it ended in the 2020 Tigray war.

All is not bad in seven years. The abolition of EPRDF’s notorious two-tier governance participation is a positive change. Before Abiy’s rule, the late Meles Zenawi and his TPLF designed a system where three parties (from Tigray, Amhara, and Oromo) were considered first class in power-sharing. Somalis were worthy of participating in tier two. Today, a Somali is the Deputy Prime Minister. This is not lost on Somalis. Who thought that there would be a day like this when a TPLF regional president plays subservient to a Somali leader at the pedestal of Arat Kilo.

PM Abiy can also point to some of his successful projects – (1) the Corridor Development projects, (2) the Green Legacy, and Wheat/food self-sufficiency. As to the Corridors development, it has beautified some corridors in Addis Ababa; However, it has also demolished mosques, erased thousands of badly needed housing units for the poor, and gutted down historical resources throughout the city. This may as well end up being Ethiopia’s version of the proverbial “urban renewal”; the impacts of this project would loom for many years. The Prime Minister’s critics argue that he is on a mission to “change the demography” of the city and Oromize it. How true this accusation is remains to be seen.

As to his other signature projects- “wheat production” and “green legacy,” projects – controversies have clouded their authenticity. It has been widely refuted by local and global critics.

The current dominant narrative about Ethiopia, seven years after PM Abiy took power, is this: Prime Minister Ahmed carried out the most devastating war in the history of the empire. Over a simple administrative disagreement with the Tigray People Liberation Front, a party that ruled the country for over 25 years, PM Abiy declared an invisible ethnic cleansing war on the region.

The 2020 Tigray war is the deadliest of the 21st century, where over 600,000 died. The Amhara region is also facing what Tigray has faced. The Oromo region is stuck in a protracted war. Journalists face constant imprisonments, and inter-regional border issues between Oromo-Somalia, Oromo-Amhara, and Amhara-Tigray are looming large; the one-dominant party rule with an autocrat at the helm is about to tighten its grip on power.

As the Prime Minister celebrates his 7th year in power, much of the federal system that voluntarily pulled hitherto warring ethnic groups is gone. Centralism, headed by a strong man, reigns supreme.

Faisal A. Roble
Email: faisalroble19@gmail.com
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Mr Roble is the former editor of WardheerNews and  CEO for Racial Justice & Equity for the Planning Department, Los Angeles City.