The people of Africa mourning Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi who died this week. But his leadership has been described by many Africans, especially Ethiopians as ‘a mixed bag.’
The friends of the deceased say that the infrastructure and modernisation within and outside Addis is apparent. Ethiopia is one of the African countries where they are building industries.
Travel several miles to the East to Nazareti (still in Ethiopia) and see new factories booming or Dire Dawa and you notice development.
Go to Ethiopia’s Tigray region and visit the city of Mekele or go to Godar etc and get amazed.
But have you ever noticed how difficult it is to get access to mobile phone services in Ethiopia? Ethiopia is one country in Africa where it is nearly impossible for a one-month visitor to get access to a telephone chip for calling out!
Have you ever noticed how many Ethiopians are in exile as a result of late Zenawi’s governance style? There over two million Ethiopians in America, about the same number in Europe and many other Ethiopians die every year as they try to run away to neighbouring countries for security and economic reasons.
So it’s said that Meles failed to build government institutions which work for people. Instead he built a personality cult and everything around a persona of Meles.
It is alleged that in 2005 he stole ‘an election’ and killed people around Meskel Square and gave a node to the death of opposition supporters around Merkato Market. Meles did not kill the people personally, but his failure to prosecute and condemn those who did, was interpreted as a sinful and evil mean oversight!
Meles’ regime locked up many opposition leaders, in Ethiopia and tortured many of them to death.