BULTUM MEDIA – Individuals who played a decisive role in the struggle that paved the way for Abiy’s premiership, from the ruling party. Lemma Megersa literally put Abiy first & Abiy turned against Lemma shortly after assuming power and long before Lemma knew what was going on.

Teyiba Hassan is one of the first OPDO’s to have spoken against the regime in no uncertain terms. I still remember her address when she visited Oromos displaced from the Somali region.

And who can forget the work people like Milkeessaa Midaksa and Dereje Gerefa Tullu played in making the much hated and derided OPDO somewhat palatable and acceptable. Without Lemma Megersa, Tayiba Hassan and folks like Milkeessaa Midaksa, it is inconceivable how the occupant of the Minilik Palace would have come to be a PM. Most of us supported this PM bc we saw these individuals behind him, we trusted their judgment and credibility.

Shortly after assuming power, Abiy used his newfound power, the yes-men within the then OPDO, and the rent that comes with state power to marginalize individuals he saw as a threat to his vision of resurrecting the inglorious reactionary feudal state and his ambition to become, well, the 7th King. In fact, while telling the public that Lemma is “the brother who leads him in secret”, he was working to render him irrelevant.

This PM is so delusional and spiteful that his grandiosity and messiah complex, along with his neo-neftegna enablers, now represent the greatest danger to the future of the Ethiopian state. He is full of certitude (considerably religious) but zero sense of history, and the resilience of structural forces. The country is already tethering on the brink and it is only a matter of time before it plunges into its depths.