By Samuel Estefanous
I don’t think mine would be a lone voice in the wilderness if I dare say rulers and subjects are drifting apart with such wide deafening void space in between that positive communication has become virtually impossible. The chemistry wouldn’t just work. PP is chasing a dream, no doubt about that, but few are aboard the Prosperity Chariot.
The party blames the people ‘you have eyes but you aren’t seeing the glittering towns, you have got ears but you don’t want to hear the development index reports, you take endless selfies at the corridor parks but remain unimpressed, for your benefit we have become nocturnal walking the streets in the middle of the night like possessed zombies inspecting developments but you turn the other way, damn you miserable ungrateful wretches.’
It reminds me of a contestant on Britain Got Talent who broke every rule trying to sell her ‘intellectual construction of the ranges of human voice’. Simon Cowell cut her short ‘We don’t care and we don’t like it.’ He wouldn’t even try to go into de-constructing the ‘intellectual construction’ as only he knows how to. He just dismissed her out of hand. I think we are acting just like Cowell did-‘We don’t care and we don’t like it. Considering the cruel rumbling noise in our pitiless tummy it is like taking a starving kid (the poster child and face of Ethiopia in the West) with emaciated face, tattered clothes and fly infested face to Disneyland to make him forget his misery-on empty stomach.’
The Disconnect
In a way the government has got a point. I, for one, am benefitting from the clean wide sidewalks and have made a habit of walking a good distance every single blessed day. But it never occurs to me I owe PP a debt of gratitude. You know why? Because I know it is one reason why I am paying fifty birr for a cup of coffee at an outdoor street corner (a tenfold price in just three years), it’s one among many factors why lunch breaks at offices have become ‘eating walk’ along Prosperity Boulevards. In all honesty, when eating lunch becomes an expression of ‘excessive consumerism’ PP’s prosperity becomes a phantom at Dream Works.
The Premier says they don’t have time to harass, apprehend or torture folks as they are busy building the country from ground up. But folks are herded to prison like cattle and the infamous TPLF-like secret detention Villas fitted with torture chambers are sprouting everywhere. The good thing is at least Federal and Addis Police declare an arrested person isn’t in their custody whenever someone is scooped from the street, residence or office and locked up somewhere. The creepy thing about this irregular detention is that hardened criminals are using it as a cover to abdicate and demand ransom pretending to be dark authorities. The Premier talks and folks don’t even care to protest. They wouldn’t scream out ‘that is the mother of all lies’. I guess we are in parallel space.
The Advent of the dreadful era of Plutocracy
The irony is mindboggling. Addis looks like a land of plenty. Fat scavengers have got a firm grip on the economy. The Ethiopian Economy has reversed the course of creating a functioning middle class. The middle class column is crashed and there are only the filthy plutocrats and the starving mass. Incidentally, do you know PP’s answer to city bound starvation? School feeding! Sometimes it makes me wonder where they went to college and what books they are reading.
The government was supposed to devise means to eradicate poverty and hunger, not to treat and sustain it like NGOs are doing. NEPAD’s declaration of eradicating hunger in Africa by 2025 had been a dismal failure, I know, but the problem in Ethiopia is compounded by the exploding population and policy disorientation.
One thing is for sure. Plutocrats thrive on conflicts. Though they are the government and in government they dread a government with a functioning justice administration system. They chose to rule by blackmailing. You know why? They always have a tribe or a religious group to take cover behind. On this one I totally agree with the Premier-thieves don’t have tribes or religion, they just manipulate the gullible mass to accumulate unearned wealth.
When it comes to income disparity, you will be disappointed if you try to get satisfactory data from the records of the ESS (Ethiopian Statistics Services) relative to Household indexes. Yet year after year the World Bank releases a report about Ethiopia’s Poverty and Inequality Platform sourcing the Service. Even if we assume Ethiopia is just like any other country with a Gini Co-efficient ratio of 0.30., one thing is beyond reasonable doubt. Beginning from 1991 the inequality is increasingly widening, not narrowing. This trend is a doomsday alarm. The data does configure the perception.
When a Nation Fails
The symptoms are pretty unmistakable. Satire comedians, motivational speakers, religious hobos, con-artists, conspiracy theorists, content creators, and all sorts of freaks of nature stand out as heroes. Reputed professions like medicine, philosophy, economics and law are hijacked by social media dilettantes vying to score high views and subscriptions. When the government promotes the invasive emboch (AI) as its flagship development talisman, we are headed the wrong way, (I mean even the reigning Pontiff has singled out AI as the next threat to the human race). The influence of this class of heroes is very deep, wide, toxic and incendiary. When a kid of ten and four takes his own life because his market stall keeper poor mother couldn’t afford to buy him an android phone to access tik tok, we are in deep sh**. When religion becomes an industry exclusively using social media platforms and when the Prophets threaten the faithful to withhold benediction until ‘the hat is filled to the brim’, we have failed as a society.
The other day I chanced on a Youtube interview of a bumpkin sporting dark shades, ‘blinks’, gold chains, a butterfly tie made of gold and all sorts of coppers complaining that his neck hurts from the weight of the jewels. I was like when did we hit this rock bottom?
How come we couldn’t replicate the commendable trends in health sectors (like the Health Insurance Scheme) and academic quality reforms in other dimensions? I am trying to see the filled part of the glass as well.
To be continued….
God Bless
The writer can be reached at : estefanoussamuel@yahoo.com
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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Before we criticize Abiy let us punish ourselves because we failed too so who to blame?
Fasil,
Very fair, all these moaners have no idea how the country was made and how the country survived its biggest homemade obstacle 7 years ago when TPLF was chased away and Abiy took over the country with no money in the account and with very little soldiers, and almost dead Airforce due to WEYANE conspiracy. For me, how did my Ethiopia survived? I am not like these people who wants to see Ethiopia civilized immediately in different aspects, but they don’t contribute anything.
Fast forward, the country defeated its enemy in 3 back-to-back wars while growing economically and militarily, the county managed to start feeding itself due to large scale irrigation, but still way to go. The country is producing some military equipment locally. The infrastructure development, the global diplomacy attention she has got in recent years make Abiy some type of Angel… great job was already done for mama Ethiopia regarding any traits within and around us.
All those people who bought Dr Abiy shirt when he showed up 7 years ago should have been very happy with what he did in just 7 years while fighting with our Idiot Fano, Idiot Shane and the dead Idiot TPLF. Honest question for those people who are claiming that Dr Abiy tricked them, how’s that? You were dancing 7 years ago before he did anything for Ethiopia just because he was saying nice things, now after 7 years and lots of achievements you are claiming that he is bad? Very funny. That is staring tribalism… he is a great leader! Just like people have hard time in the west to understand Trump and its actions, our leader is also facing similar stance. Majority don’t know what is coming, what happened at list the past 80 plus years around the world. What must happen now to keep a future of a country.
8 billion people around the world, may be 95% 0f them don’t have any clue, especially Ethiopians, very DEFAR EN FETATA people who will argue for hours on something they don’t even understand
Fair enough regarding the good work done, one of which is completion of GERD, the green legacy, etc.
There are good developments in Addis, but at a cost of the inhabitants who were denied of their constitutional rights on property. This needs to be known.
Utilization of rare resource (finance mainly) needs well planned prioritization.
But how about safety with in the country?
Why is the government not giving priority to peace and safety in the country? What’s more important? A palace costing worth more than twice GERD (with unknown source of financing) or a fertilizer industry? Let alone destroying the forest ( lung of the city)? Peace and safety in the country or shining roads in Addis?
Look the facts:
– Inflation very high
– GDP declining
– Working ambience for manufacturing sector- very unfavorable
– due to conflicts, agriculture not developing and stalled in some regions
The government boasts of development: many think that the PM is always lying in the Parlament.
-how can one thrust a PM who lied to its citizens? Who let a foreign military operate in Ethiopia against Ethiopians?
– if people can not move freely, if production can not take place, how on earth can an economy grow,
– many detentions
– people are afraid today more than Derg and EPRDF time of government security. Why?
– how can a government claiming to represent the people fight against the people who voted it?
-government shall serve the people, listen to the voices
Ofcourse we shall also see the full part of the glass, but it’s still at the bottom.
Abiy Ahmed is a failure and his days in the palace are counted. The regional power Tigray is compelled to launch a targetted military opration in Ethiopia to oust his regime and secure its interests. Ethiopia and Tigray can be peaceful neighbours after the war monger Abiy Ahmed is done with. But Tigray will continue to respect the legal status of Oromia since it is its gift to the Oromo people.
Mr. Digital Tigraway
Calling Abiy Ahmed a straightforward failure ignores a complex and substantially documented record of achievement. Per capita incomes in Ethiopia have grown by 22 percent since 2018, and Ethiopia’s inflation rate fell from 29.4% in January 2024 to 15.5% by early 2025, reflecting real macroeconomic progress. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam — the largest hydroelectric project in Africa — was inaugurated in 2025, a transformational achievement in energy sovereignty. In February 2025, Ethiopia was elected to the AU Peace and Security Council for a three-year term, hardly the profile of a collapsing regime.
The claim that Tigray is a “regional power” positioned to launch a military operation and oust the federal government is fantasy. The federal government has maintained the upper hand over all armed insurgencies, with neither the Fano in Amhara nor the Oromo Liberation Army able to establish control over significant territory. The TPLF is in a far weaker position than your comment implies — the NEBE revoked the TPLF’s legal status as a political party in May 2025 for failing to hold a general assembly as required for re-registration.