By David Yeh
The cardinal principle of Colonel Abiy Ahmed’s fragile grip on power is disarmingly simple: exploit every fault line, turn the country’s peoples and opposition forces against one another, and rule over the ruins. Wrapped in the beguiling language of love, peace, reform, and Medemer, this machinery of division has operated relentlessly over the past eight years. What is often marketed as unity has, in practice, functioned as a sophisticated political strategy built on fragmentation.
Ethiopia is a country of immense diversity ethnic, linguistic, religious, and regional. In such a society, leadership requires a careful balancing act. Words matter. Signals matter. Small gestures can calm tensions, while careless rhetoric can ignite them. The power of the Ethiopian premiership carries with it the responsibility to reduce friction between communities and protect the fragile bonds that hold the federation together.
Yet the trajectory of the past several years suggests a different approach. Rather than standing above the country’s divisions, Abiy has repeatedly appeared to lean into them, amplifying tensions at moments when restraint would have served the country better. Recent events illustrate this pattern with unsettling clarity.
On February 18 – 19, 2026, Abiy flew by helicopter to the Wollega zones in the Oromia region and addressed large crowds of Oromos gathered there. The setting itself was symbolic: Wollega has been one of the most troubled areas in Oromia in recent years, plagued by insecurity, armed insurgencies, and widespread distrust toward the federal government.
From the stage, the prime minister delivered a message that reverberated far beyond the crowd before him. He warned that northerners Amhara, Tigrayans, and Eritreans were coming with knives to steal Oromo opportunities.
In a country already strained by deep ethnic tensions, such language is explosive. It was not an offhand remark. It was a carefully delivered warning framed in a way that portrayed fellow citizens as looming threats. The irony was difficult to ignore. Only months earlier, Abiy had reportedly spoken about the devastation in Wollega, even suggesting he had destroyed Wollega more than Tigray. Now he arrived presenting himself as the protector of the Oromo people against outsiders.
The shift was less about consistency than political positioning. In a polarized landscape, narratives change depending on the audience. For supporters, he appears as a defender. For critics, the rhetoric resembles a familiar tactic: inflame anxieties within one community while redirecting blame toward another.
Within a week of that speech, tragedy struck elsewhere in Oromia.
Nearly thirty Orthodox Christians most of them Amhara, were killed in Arsi. The victims were civilians: ordinary people whose lives were caught in the crosscurrents of Ethiopia’s increasingly volatile politics.
Whether or not a direct causal line can be drawn between the speech in Wollega and the killings in Arsi, the proximity in time highlights a broader reality. Words from the highest office in the land carry enormous weight. When leaders frame certain communities as threats, those narratives can echo through society in unpredictable and sometimes violent ways. The consequences are rarely confined to rhetoric. They seep into local grievances, militia mobilizations, and the everyday suspicions that grow between neighbors.
This dynamic has become a recurring pattern in Ethiopian politics over the past decade. Instead of lowering the political temperature, national discourse often rises with each major address. Rather than offering reassurance across ethnic lines, speeches frequently emphasize grievance and vulnerability. In a country already burdened with historical trauma and unresolved disputes, this approach risks deepening rather than healing divisions.
Another example of this pattern can be seen in the political handling of the contested districts of Wolkait and Raya. These areas, situated between the Amhara and Tigray regions, have long been among the most sensitive territorial disputes in Ethiopia. The conflict that erupted in northern Ethiopia after 2020 transformed these districts into symbols of competing historical claims, identity, and suffering. In such a context, any attempt to alter electoral boundaries or administrative status carries enormous political implications.
Yet in recent months, the government has appeared to treat these districts like pieces in a political chess game. At one point, electoral arrangements seemed to favor Tigray, a move that provoked outrage among Amhara communities who view the territories as historically theirs. Soon afterward, the arrangement shifted again, triggering anger among Tigrayans who interpreted the reversal as a betrayal.
What followed was a scramble through legal channels to undo earlier decisions when it appeared that the maneuvering might produce unintended consequences namely, the possibility that rival groups might find common ground against the federal government. The effect was not stability but confusion, suspicion, and renewed grievance on all sides. Such tactics may offer short term political advantages. By keeping competing groups suspicious of one another, the center can sometimes position itself as the only actor capable of managing the chaos. But the long term costs are immense. Trust erodes not only between communities but also between citizens and the institutions meant to serve them.
The situation on the ground in Oromia illustrates the human cost of this political environment. Violence in areas like Wollega and Arsi has become tragically common. Armed groups operate in shifting alliances and rivalries. Civilians often find themselves caught between insurgents, militias, and security forces. Communities that once coexisted with relative stability now live under the shadow of fear.
Reports of attacks targeting Orthodox Christians in Arsi have heightened concerns that religious identity is being pulled into the country’s already volatile ethnic politics. Ethiopia has historically been home to deep interfaith coexistence. Muslims and Christians have lived side by side for centuries, often within the same families and neighborhoods.
Efforts to ignite religious conflict therefore strike at one of the strongest foundations of Ethiopian social life.
The apparent goal of such violence is clear: fracture society along every available line. If ethnic division alone is insufficient, religious tensions can be introduced. If regional disputes are not enough, historical grievances can be revived. The more fragmented the social landscape becomes, the harder it is for broad coalitions of opposition to form. And yet, despite these pressures, Ethiopian society continues to demonstrate remarkable resilience.
Across the country, countless communities still refuse to see their neighbors as enemies. Oromos continue to protect Amharas in some towns. Muslims and Christians still gather for each other’s holidays. Families that span ethnic boundaries remain living proof that the country’s identity is more complex than political narratives suggest.
This resilience may be the most important barrier preventing the country from sliding even further into chaos. But resilience alone cannot substitute for responsible leadership.
When the head of government speaks, millions listen. Every word becomes part of the political atmosphere in which people interpret events around them. In polarized environments, even subtle signals can carry enormous implications. Instead of calming tensions, the political tone set from the top has often seemed to sharpen them.
Abiy’s rhetoric has at times extended beyond domestic politics into regional affairs as well. Statements directed toward neighboring Eritrea or toward leaders in Tigray have occasionally carried a confrontational tone that worries observers across the Horn of Africa. The region remains fragile. The war in northern Ethiopia left deep scars not only within the country but across its borders. Millions were displaced. Infrastructure was destroyed. Diplomatic relationships were strained. In such a context, even rhetorical escalation risks reopening wounds that have barely begun to heal. The cumulative result is a political landscape defined by polarization.
Abiy has become one of the most divisive political figures in Ethiopia and across the wider Horn of Africa. Supporters portray him as a reformer battling entrenched interests and violent insurgencies. Critics see a leader whose methods have deepened the country’s fractures while concentrating power at the center. Regardless of which interpretation one accepts, the level of polarization is undeniable. And it is no longer confined to speeches or political debates.
Across Ethiopia today, multiple armed groups are engaged in conflict with the federal government. Some operate in Oromia. Others are active in Amhara or in the remnants of networks that once fought in the north. Each claims to represent a different vision for the country’s future, yet many share a common conclusion: that the current political system has closed off peaceful avenues for change. When political competition moves from ballots to bullets, the consequences are devastating. Civilians bear the brunt of the suffering. Villages are emptied. Markets collapse. Young people grow up knowing only conflict and mistrust. The economic potential of one of Africa’s largest countries becomes trapped in cycles of insecurity. At the same time, the longer divisions deepen, the harder it becomes to rebuild a shared national narrative.
Ethiopia has faced such moments before. Its history is marked by periods of intense struggle followed by attempts at reconciliation and reform. The question facing the country today is whether its leaders will choose to break the cycle or reinforce it. Politics built on division may offer short term control, but it rarely produces long term stability. Nations held together through perpetual suspicion eventually confront the limits of that strategy.
What Ethiopia needs is not more narratives of threat but narratives of coexistence. Not more manipulation of historical grievances but genuine efforts to address them. Not more political gamesmanship with borders and identities but transparent processes that allow communities to resolve disputes peacefully. Above all, it requires leadership willing to speak to the entire nation rather than to fragments of it.
Whether in uniform or without, whether wielding a rifle or a pen, those who weaponize innocent civilians for political ends cross a moral line. They cease to be ordinary rivals within a political system and become threats to the society itself. And when politics descends to that level, the struggle is no longer merely about who holds power in Addis Ababa. It becomes a struggle over whether the country’s diverse peoples can still imagine a future together.
Ultimately Ethiopia stands at a dangerous crossroads. Years of war, political manipulation, and rising mistrust have pushed the country into one of the most polarized moments in its modern history. What began as promises of reform and unity has gradually evolved into a political landscape defined by fragmentation, suspicion, and recurring violence.
The strategy of governing through division may create short term political survival, but it erodes the foundations of a nation over time. A country as diverse as Ethiopia cannot be sustained by narratives that frame communities as threats to one another. When political power is maintained by amplifying ethnic fears, manipulating territorial disputes, or tolerating violence against civilians, the very idea of a shared national future begins to unravel.
The events unfolding in places like Wollega, Arsi, Wolkait, and Raya are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of a deeper crisis: a political system increasingly dependent on tension rather than reconciliation. Each speech that sharpens ethnic anxieties, each decision that plays communities against one another, pushes the country further away from stability and deeper into uncertainty.
Yet Ethiopia’s story is not only one of conflict. For centuries, its peoples have lived side by side across languages, faiths, and cultures. Orthodox Christians and Muslims have shared neighborhoods and traditions. Oromos, Amharas, Tigrayans, and many others have built families, communities, and economies together. That deeply rooted social fabric has proven more resilient than the political forces trying to tear it apart.
The future of the country will ultimately depend on whether that resilience can overcome the politics of division. No government can indefinitely maintain legitimacy while civilians become instruments in political battles. Whether they are targeted because of ethnicity, religion, or geography, the use of innocent lives as tools of power marks a moral and political failure. Such practices transform political rivalry into something far more dangerous: a struggle over the survival of the nation itself.
Ethiopia’s path forward requires something fundamentally different: leadership that lowers the temperature rather than raising it, institutions that resolve disputes rather than manipulate them, and a political culture that treats diversity as a strength rather than a weapon. Without that shift, the cycle of fragmentation will continue to deepen, and the cost will be borne not by politicians but by ordinary Ethiopians.
The question facing the country is therefore simple but profound: will Ethiopia continue down a path where division is the currency of power, or will its people demand a future built on accountability, coexistence, and genuine unity?
The answer to that question will shape not only Ethiopia’s future, but the stability of the entire Horn of Africa.
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