Ethiopia's Nobel Intellectual Soldier
Adekeye Adebajo
Ethiopia's 43-year old prime minister, Abiy Ahmed – Africa's youngest leader - received the $900,000 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on 10 November, becoming the 13th African and 100th awardee to obtain the prize since 1901. He joins Egypt's Anwar Sadat, South Africa's F.W. de Klerk, and Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as the fourth sitting African leader - and second Eastern African after Kenya's Wangari Maathai - to be ennobled. On hearing the news, an elated Abiy noted: "It is a prize given to Africa, given to Ethiopia and I can imagine how the rest of Africa's leaders will take it positively to work on [the] peacebuilding process on our continent."
The Nobel Committee awarded Abiy the prize for his efforts to "achieve peace and international cooperation," highlighting his "decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea." Abiy also won the award for initiating "important reforms that give many [Ethiopian] citizens hope for a better life and a brighter future." Ethiopia's premier has consistently promoted a message of Medemer ("coming together"), making peace with Eritrea barely three months after taking office, embarking on a courageous pilgrimage to Asmara, agreeing on opening the border and communication lines, restoring travel, and reuniting families. The 1998-2000 border war between both countries resulted in 100,000 deaths and was described as akin to "two bald men fighting over a comb" due to the lack of concrete strategic interests at stake.
Abiy has also sought to mediate conflicts between Eritrea and Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya, and Eritrea and Somalia. More recently, he contributed to successful efforts to establish a transitional government in Sudan between the military junta and civil society groups following the coup d'état that toppled Omar al-Bashir's autocracy in April. Abiy has further sought to promote regional integration on the Horn of Africa through joint infrastructure projects, arguing that domestic peace and development can be achieved only through these broader regional efforts.
At home, he has acted as a bold reformer, releasing thousands of political prisoners, unbanning groups formerly deemed "terrorist" organisations, apologising for past human rights abuses, allowing political exiles to return home, jailing senior officials engaged in corruption and human rights abuses, and lifting media restrictions and the "state of emergency". He has also established a Peace and Reconciliation Commission to promote domestic reconciliation, and appointed a cabinet of gender parity and a female chief justice and president. These popular actions unleashed a wave of "Abiymania" across the country.
Abiy was born of a Muslim Oromo father and a Christian Amhara mother, inculcating in him an innate understanding of cultural diversity. Being from the largest Ethiopian group, the Oromo, has helped to dissipate some of the grievances of a people that have long felt marginalised. He is married to an Amhara woman and speaks Oromo, Amharic, and Tigrinya. Abiy joined the Ethiopian rebel resistance to the dreaded Derg regime of Marxist dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, at the age of 15 in 1991. He rose to become a colonel, intelligence chief, and head of cyber security, also serving as a United Nations (UN) peacekeeper in Rwanda. He obtained a doctorate from the Institute for Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University, and holds two master's degrees in transformational leadership and business administration, as well as a bachelor's degree in computer engineering.
Abiy left the army to join politics in 2010 as a parliamentarian for the Oromo People's Democratic Organisation. As a legislator, he led the establishment of a "Religious Forum for Peace" to foster reconciliation between Muslims and Christians involved in persistent clashes. Abiy assumed the premiership of Africa's second most populous country in April 2018, following two years of widespread protests against government repression, land-grabbing, and displacement of locals for development projects, during which 1,000 people were killed and 20,000 jailed.
But despite some successes, Ethiopia's premier has a long way to go to achieve domestic and regional stability. Even the peace deal with Eritrea – the main initiative for which he won the Nobel prize – is threatened by the fact that his promised return of the border town of Badme to Asmara depends on the Tigray-dominated military to implement. Having sacrificed so much blood to win the territory, it is unclear Tigrayan generals will cooperate.
Ethiopia's post-1991 federal system has aspirations for self-determination for its multiple groups. But this mainly remains theoretical ambitions, as efforts to actualise such autonomy have often created fissures that have threatened the unity of this polyglot nation. Like Africa's most populous country, Nigeria, the 108 million-strong Ethiopian state is an ethnically and religiously diverse federation which suffers from many tensions and has the potential to destabilise its entire sub-region. Tigrayans who have dominated the political space over the last three decades are only 6% of the population, while Oromos account for 34% and Amharas 27%.
Many have also questioned how entrenched Abiy's reforms are, and whether his regime is still vulnerable to the machinations of Tigray-dominated securocrats. An assassination attempt was reported in June 2018. Despite Abiy's efforts, personal charisma can not be a sustainable substitute for a lack of political unity and effective state institutions. Internal instability has continued, with 2.9 million Ethiopians – the most of any country - remaining internally displaced by local conflicts, while the government still has to manage discontent in its turbulent Oromia and Amhara regions. Even after the Nobel announcement, protesters have been arrested in Addis Ababa, the internet has been blocked, and journalists have been harassed. There could be a return to autocratic methods in the name of stability. Elections in May 2020 present a major test of Abiy's popularity and ability to keep together his fissiparous country and fragile ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) party which is showing real signs of splintering.
As Abiy received the Nobel Peace Prize, controversy swirled in Oslo at his refusal to attend the traditional press conferences. However, his fellow laureate, United States (US) president, Barack Obama, also did not give any media interviews while collecting the award in 2009. The hope is that the Nobel Prize will assist Abiy to consolidate his reform efforts, and not become an albatross around the young premier's neck.
Professor Adekeye Adebajo is Director of the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, and editor of Nobel Peace Laureates of African Descent.
Published in Guardian (Nigeria), 10 December 2019.
The Politics of Africa/EU Migration
Adekeye Adebajo
An estimated 1,400 mostly young Africans died trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe last year. About 1,000 have died so far this year. A recent two-day policy dialogue was hosted by the University of Johannesburg's Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation (IPATC) titled "Conflict, Governance, and Human Mobility in Africa/European Union Relations." The meeting involved 30 African, European, and United Nations (UN) policymakers, civil society actors, and academics, and sought to promote the implementation of the UN Global Compact on Migration signed in Marrakesh last December.
The causes of African migration to Europe are partly a result of conflicts in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mali, Central African Republic (CAR), Sudan, and Libya. This has resulted in a lack of opportunities on a continent in which 60% of the population is under the age of 30. Poor governance in the form of human rights abuses, electoral violence, unaccountable governments, and a failure to manage diversity effectively, have also sometimes contributed to migration. Many of the states from which these migrants come are thus often countries in conflict, emerging from war, and/or suffering from poor governance.
This situation is further complicated by the divergent views of African and EU governments towards migration: while African governments often see migration as an opportunity to gain economic remittances (an estimated 20 billion euros annually is contributed by Africans in the EU), many European governments tend to view the phenomenon as a security threat, often scapegoating and criminalising migrants. "Fortress Europe" has thus resulted in governments strengthening border security – in contravention of their own free movement principles of the 1985 Schengen accord – with Spain, Greece, and Hungary having built border fences to keep out migrants, and Slovenia in the process of constructing one. Critics have also noted the penchant of EU states to strike deals with economically vulnerable African states such as Mali and Niger in a bid to keep migrants from reaching Europe. Disembarkation points for African migrants have also been proposed in autocratic Egypt and Morocco.
Brussels has argued that one million migrants enter the EU annually, and that the 28-member bloc has sought to encourage legal circular migration in which migrants can return to their home countries after an agreed period of time. This proposal has, however, often been dismissed as operating mainly in the realm of theory. African governments were criticised for not prioritising migration, and it was noted that EU negotiators tend to be much more prepared at migration summits that their African counterparts. Critics have also noted that African governments often leave the implementation of migration policies largely to UN agencies such as the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The IOM is currently supporting the African Union and African sub-regional bodies like the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to develop migration policies; is backing the Nairobi-based African Institute for Remittances; and has focused on protecting migrants, supporting policy debates, and promoting better understanding of migration issues. The UNHCR – which is leading the implementation of the 2018 UN Global Compact of Refugees – has sought to ease pressure on refugee-hosting countries; extend access to refugees; support country solutions; improve the conditions of refugees; and enhance the self-reliance of refugees.
Despite 70% of African migration occurring on the continent, African governments have often been accused of securitising migration and restricting the free movement of migrants. These governments have also been criticised for not condemning the maltreatment of their citizens left at sea for two weeks by governments like Italy's.
Five key recommendations emerged from the Johannesburg policy dialogue: first, the AU must urgently implement its 2018 free movement protocol; second, EU governments must stop criminalising search and rescue missions of Africans at sea; third, the AU should allocate substantial resources to tackle migration, and must itself become directly involved in search and rescue missions; fourth, the EU should provide massive investment to labour-intensive economic sectors in Africa, such as agriculture, in order to promote socio-economic development and reduce the incentives for migration; finally, African and EU civil society must be granted a greater role in policymaking on migration issues, which are still often dominated by governments on both continents.
Professor Adekeye Adebajo is Director of the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg.
Published in Business Day (South Africa), 2 December 2019.
Professor Adekeye Adebajo
Director, Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation
University of Johannesburg
5 Molesey Avenue Auckland Park 2092
Johannesburg, South Africa
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