Zenawi’s exit, in all seriousness
The prime
Minster told the Washington post that as far as he is concerned he has
had enough –being a leader that is- this time with out the qualifier
– unless his party needs him. When the person himself says he
has had enough it is a wake up call to think in all seriousness the
issue deserves
The Prime Minister's exit is as much important as his staying in power.
Ethiopia is not at loss of leaders who want to see, or profess to see,
their country transform form poverty to development. What Ethiopia has
not found yet is a leader who can do the miracles of transfer of power
peacefully. On personal level the Prime Minster has been a thorn to
his enemies by making them at loss of finding ways to dethrone him.
He would have had the last laugh if he could show them their chauvinistic
system is irreversibly destroyed not only when he is in power but long
after his exit. Peaceful transfer of power is the biggest achievement
he would do to the country.
The
problem with third world countries may be the fact that we give our leaders
unnecessary expectation and they also take upon themselves like wise.
Hence they feed us about the “fetan babur”, the “bachir
gize”, the “five year plan”, “the fetan Ediget”
etc etc. Years pass by and before you know it they have been in power
10,20 years and find out that they have not achieved the bench mark they
set out for themselves. And the inevitable “When are you going to
give up power?” come pushing. During the last draught the prime
minister's regret was that after a decade in power he did not see Ethiopia
food sustanable country. On one hand, the question tells us that we have
not yet set neither the mechanism nor a time table to to replace our leaders.We
don't have the joy of playing the Hillary-Obama who would win trivia.
The worst thing to think is that our leaders don't have a replacement.
If the party can’t think it can find a replacement now there is
no reason to think they will find one in 5 or ten years – because
with time they will just be more dependent on the GREAT WISE LEADER. Then
death come and it dons on them that they will have to do with out the
wisdom of their leader and lo and behold they will find out they can !
But it should not be about whether we find replacement, it should be about
the fact that at the end of the day, the prime minister's office is an
office with time limit like any office. It is about the fact that a country
should see a peaceful transfer of leadership as it finds it necessary
to see a peaceful transfer of power from one party to another. Any leader
does not have the responsibility of a job that takes decades[getting rid
of poverty]. He only has to do what is required of him in an election
cycle or two. The Prime Minster is a brilliant leader, but Ethiopia will
be fine with out him. Given the opportunity people do shine. And that
does not come by happenstance but by deliberate planning, by giving people
the opportunity to step up to the plate. Let us make the habit for our
leaders to show us they can do the job in one cycle of election and reward
them with one more as show of gratitude.[Alula Nega]
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