Ethiopia’s ruling dictatorial regime — EPRDF — which is a coalition of four parties organized ethnically under the auspices of TPLF nominated Abiy Ahmed(PHD) for premiership.
After the fall of the previous regime, Abiy, 42, became a child soldier in the now Ethiopian National Defense Force , and later he worked in the notorious Ethiopian intelligence and communications department. Polyglot Abey grew up in a family with two religions and ethnicity with his father, Ahmed Ali, being an Oromo Muslim and his mother being an Amhara Christian from Wello. Abiy is a Christian , and is married to an Amhara Christian who he met while he was serving in the Ethiopian Defense Forces. They have three daughters together. Given his multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual background , Abiy stands a good chance of addresing the grievances of the Amhara and Oromo community , which together makes up more than 70% of the population of Ethiopia, orthogonally.
Although Abiy’s nomination is an inter-regime matter, and that it has nothing to do with a change to democracy in Ethiopia, I would like to congratulate him for a glimmer of hope that he’ll be a slightly different captain in leading the country to a new direction.
The nomination of Dr Abey, OPDO has come as a surprise after the dupty prime minister from ANDM — Demeke Mekonnen — declined to accept a bid for the chairmanship of EPRDF in the last minutes. ANDEM and OPDO have unanimously voted for Dr Abiy who is the most competent of the three candidates in the race . TPLF, which is the source and architect of tyranny in the country, didn’t cast a single vote for Abiy while SEPDM casted only a little over a dozen. It’s evident that more than half of SEPDM , and nearly all TPLF, conspired in vain to nominate Shiferaw Shigute, SEPDM instead.
We’ll get to know if Abiy is yet another trojan puppet , or real, in only couple of days after his inauguration ; that he would take new, pragmatic, directions to democracy. Should they have the courage, it’s evident that Abiy, OPDO , Demeke, ANDEM, Gedu, ANDEM and Lemma, OPDO have more synergy, communion, internal support and people power to do the things that matter most wholeheartedly.
We, the people, expect in the coming couple of days that :
— The state of emergency will be lifted immediately.
— All political prisoners will be released immediately.
— Media will be freed immediately.
— The border of Addis Ababa will be marked in bold immediately.
— National grand projects will be audited immediately.
— Anole monument will be demolished.
— Relocate those displaced as a result of Oromo-Somali conflict immediately.
— State finance system will be audited immediately.
— Ethiopia’s Foreign diplomatic staffs will be shuffled immediately.
— National reconciliation committee will be instituted immediately.
— National Transitional Board will be instituted , and its holistic framework for transition to democracy will be pitched, augmented and buzzed through the state media.
— The justice system will be instituted anew.
— The national election board will be instituted a new.
— Ethiopia’s Central Statistics Authority will be checked and balanced.
— That Intel will be instituted anew.
— That Grand corruption will be taken top down, bottom up and horizontally.
— That Federal power will be fair and balanced.
— Military leadership will be renewed.
— That the disproportionate tax paid by the city of Addis to the Federal government will be earmarked for addressing exacerbating urban destitution in the chartered city.
Meanwhile, the struggle will/must continue as long as what’s outlined above isn’t delivered as a mater of practically.
By Mikael Arage
