Leadership in Ethiopia
By Magn Nyang
October 31, 2008 — There seems to be an ill-fated leadership pattern in Ethiopia. The derg regime came to power under the pretext of liberating the oppressed Ethiopians. The regime promised democracy, but did not deliver. Instead, it turned around and oppressed the same Ethiopians it had promised to liberate. The junta led by General Aman Mikail Andom carried out a coup d’etat to bring change to Ethiopians’ leadership. However, once in power, the junta refused change. The junta wanted to stay in power indefinitely. Thanks to guerrilla fighters, the junta was pushed out of power in 1991.
Later, the guerrilla fighters called themselves the Ethiopia People Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPDRF). Like its predecessor, the EPDRF regime promised democracy for Ethiopians. To prove its promise to Ethiopians, the regime captured remnants of the derg regime officials and imprisoned them. It accused them of oppressing, exploiting, and murdering innocent Ethiopians. It also accused them of monopolizing power and wanting to remain in power indefinitely.
The irony is that the EPDRF is now oppressing, exploiting, and murdering innocent Ethiopians. And, 17 years later, the EPDRF is still monopolizing power with no end in-sight. The question is: why do leaders tend to lavish accusations at each others and turned around and do the same thing that they accused the other leader of doing? For me, the answer is that they do that because they are not visionary leaders. In fact, Ethiopia never had a visionary leader and I doubted it will have one in the future. To be doubtful of having a visionary leader in Ethiopia in the future, one need not have to look further than what just happened to Coalition for Unity and Democracy’s (CUD) leadership. CUD’s leaders proved beyond reasonable doubt how self-centered, incompetent, and unsophisticated they were. At first, they managed to convince that they had the remedies for Ethiopia’s problems and they were believed by millions of Ethiopians. However, at the end, they acted like bunch of peasants, quarrelling over whose ethnic group is superior. This primitive tendency led them to their demise. What Ethiopia need is a visionary leader- one who has a vision to take Ethiopia from its current status of foreign aid beneficiary to self-sufficient country.
A visionary leader is a morally mature person who shows high level of commitment, internal motivation, and personal development and sense of purpose. A visionary leader does not abuse his/her power. A visionary leader values learning process and is able to learn from others. A visionary leader considers himself/herself as a learner, not as one who has all the answers. He/she develops measurable goals and strategies to achieve the goals within certain time limit. A visionary leader is goal oriented and is not interested in open-ended leadership. He/she is about change and achieving goals. He/she fully knows that leadership is all about bringing real change and achieving goals.
In the case of Ethiopia, no leader has came yet and led with a vision. Mengistu Haile Mariam was a nationalist without a vision. He did not develop measurable goals; and therefore, he did not have to work to achieve anything. Meles Zenawi is neither a nationalist nor a visionary leader. Even though, he tried early on in his speeches to sound like he was a visionary leader, he later turned out to be a visionless leader just like his predecessor.
Some have pointed to the beltway and high-rise buildings that are built (some are still being built) in Addis Ababa as indications of Meles’ vision and achievements. First of all, Ethiopia is not just Addis Ababa. What ever is being done in Addis Ababa has to also be done in the other regions of Ethiopia for it to be called an achievement. Second, who needs beltway and high-rise buildings in the city with almost 60% unemployment and in the city where close to a million people live and beg on the streets? In addition, two-third of Addis Ababa’s residents survives on less than a dollar a day. Their basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing are not yet properly met. How can they afford to buy cars and drive on beltway and at the same time afford to rent rooms in the high-rise buildings? What would be really needed in Addis Ababa at this point in time are jobs, and the government needs to find a way to create them, not beltway and high-rise buildings. Jobs need to be created so that the residents could have employments to raise their live standards before lavishing them with high-rise buildings that they could not afford to live in.
The countryside also needs to be developed to stop the peasants and the unemployed from migrating to the cities, especially to Addis Ababa to be beggars. Most of the people begging on the streets of Addis Ababa are from the countryside, especially from the Northern part of the country (one can tell from their accents). This part of the country has been suffering from drought since Emperor Haile Sellassie’s reign and it is from this part of the country that more than 4 million people a year face starvation. Mengistu did not do enough to deal with this issue, except moving people in 1986 to the West and South, where supposedly surplus lands were available. And since the starvation continues to occur each year in the North part of the country for the past 17 years, it is obvious that Meles has not and he is not doing anything to solve the drought problem.
It is time for Ethiopia to have a leader who has a vision for improving the farming capabilities (e.g. build dams) of the farmers in the countryside, especially in the North and who will create jobs in towns and cities to raise the living standard of all Ethiopians, not just the few and the well connected.
Ethiopia does not need a leader who throws all kinds of accusations at other leader and if and when he/she gets into the power, he/she turns around and does the same thing that the other leader did. And at the same time, Ethiopia does not need a leader who borrows money from the World Bank to build high-rise buildings that average Ethiopians can not afford to live in and can’t afford to pay back the debt to the World Bank.
The author is a son of Gambella and can be reached by writing to [email protected].