1. Abiy Ahmed Ali is an Ethiopian politician who is the current Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 2018 and the leader of the Prosperity Party since 2019.
62 Facts About Abiy Ahmed
1. 2.
Abiy Ahmed rose through the ranks of government via the Information Network Security Agency, which was established in 2006.
3.
Abiy Ahmed was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize "for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea".
4.
Abiy Ahmed is a member of the Ethiopian parliament, and was a member of the Oromo Democratic Party, one of the then four coalition parties of the EPRDF, until its rule ceased in 2019 and he formed his own party, the Prosperity Party.
5.
Since 2019, Ethiopia has undergone democratic backsliding under Abiy Ahmed's premiership, marked by severe human rights violations, media censorship, internet shutdown, civil conflicts and systematic persecution of thousands of ethnic Amharas, and ethnic violence in southern regions of Ethiopia, such as Amaro Koore, Konso and Gedeo Zones.
6.
Abiy Ahmed is believed to lead and organize Koree Nageenyaa, a secret service that purportedly commits unlawful detentions and extrajudicial killings in the Oromia Region with the aim of suppressing uprisings.
7.
Abiy Ahmed was born in the small town of Beshasha, Ethiopia.
8.
Abiy Ahmed's deceased father, Ahmed Ali, was a Muslim Oromo.
9.
Abiy Ahmed's father was a typical Oromo farmer, speaking only Oromo.
10.
The ethnicity of Abiy Ahmed's deceased mother, Tezeta Wolde, varies according to the sources.
11.
The New York Times, in a 2018 interview with Abiy Ahmed, stated that his mother "was Amhara and Orthodox Christian" and "converted to Islam when she married" and The Guardian in 2019 described Tezeta as Amhara.
12.
Abiy Ahmed is the 13th child of his father and the sixth and youngest child of his mother, the fourth of his father's four wives.
13.
Abiy Ahmed, according to several personal reports, was always very interested in his own education and later in his life encouraged others to learn and to improve.
14.
Abiy Ahmed married Zinash Tayachew, an Amhara woman from Gondar, while both were serving in the Ethiopian National Defense Force.
15.
Abiy Ahmed is a fitness aficionado and frequents physical and gym activities in Addis Ababa.
16.
Abiy Ahmed is a Pentecostal Christian, born of a Muslim father and a Christian mother.
17.
Abiy Ahmed was raised in a family of religious plurality.
18.
Abiy Ahmed's wife Zinash Tayachew is a Christian who ministers in her church as a gospel singer.
19.
Abiy Ahmed holds a Master of Arts in transformational leadership earned from the business school at Greenwich University, London, in collaboration with the International Leadership Institute, Addis Ababa, in 2011.
20.
Abiy Ahmed holds a Master of Business Administration from the Leadstar College of Management and Leadership in Addis Ababa in partnership with Ashland University in 2013.
21.
Abiy Ahmed, who had started his Doctor of Philosophy work as a regular student, submitted his PhD thesis in 2016, and defended it in 2017 at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, Addis Ababa University.
22.
Abiy Ahmed published a related short research article on de-escalation strategies in the Horn of Africa in a special journal issue dedicated to countering violent extremism.
23.
Abiy Ahmed was a child soldier, affiliated to the Oromo People's Democratic Organization, which at that time was a tiny organization of only around 200 fighters part of the large coalition army of the EPRDF which had over 100,000 fighters that resulted in the regime's fall later that year.
24.
Abiy Ahmed brought calm and peace in a situation of communal tensions accompanying the clashes.
25.
In 2006, Abiy Ahmed was one of the co-founders of the Information Network Security Agency, where he worked in different positions.
26.
Abiy Ahmed attained the rank of Lieutenant colonel before deciding in 2010 to leave the military and his post as deputy director of INSA to become a politician.
27.
Abiy Ahmed started his political career as a member of the Oromo Democratic Party.
28.
Abiy Ahmed became a member of the central committee of ODP and congress member of the executive committee of the EPRDF in quick succession.
29.
Abiy Ahmed helped set up a forum entitled "Religious Forum for Peace", an outcome of the need to devise a sustainable resolution mechanism to restore peaceful Muslim-Christian community interaction in the region.
30.
In 2014, during his time in parliament, Abiy Ahmed became the director-general of a new and in 2011 founded Government Research Institute called Science and Technology Information Center.
31.
In October 2015, Abiy Ahmed became the Ethiopian Minister of Science and Technology, a post which he left after only 12 months.
32.
From October 2016 on, Abiy Ahmed served as Deputy President of Oromia Region as part of the team of Oromia Region's president Lemma Megersa while staying a member of the Ethiopian Federal House of Peoples' Representatives.
33.
Abiy Ahmed became the head of the Oromia Urban Development and Planning Office.
34.
Until early 2018, Abiy Ahmed continued to serve as head of the ODP secretariat and of the Oromia Housing and Urban Development Office and as Deputy President of Oromia Region.
35.
Abiy Ahmed left all these posts after his election as the leader of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front.
36.
On 22 February 2018, Lemma Megersa's party, ODP, called for an emergency executive committee meeting and replaced him as Chairman of ODP with Abiy Ahmed, who was a member of parliament.
37.
Some observers saw that as a strategic move by the ODP to retain its leadership role within the coalition and to promote Abiy Ahmed to become prime minister.
38.
On 27 March 2018, a few hours before the beginning of the leadership elections, Demeke Mekonnen, who had been seen as the major opponent to Abiy Ahmed, dropped out of the race.
39.
On 2 April 2018, Abiy Ahmed was elected as Prime Minister of Ethiopia by the House of Representatives and sworn in.
40.
On 2 April 2018, Abiy Ahmed was confirmed and sworn in by the Ethiopian parliament as Prime Minister of Ethiopia.
41.
Since taking office in April 2018, Abiy Ahmed's government has presided over the release of thousands of political prisoners from Ethiopian jails and the rapid opening of the country's political landscape.
42.
Shortly thereafter, Abiy Ahmed took the "unprecedented and previously unimaginable" step of meeting Andargachew, who twenty-four hours previously had been on death row, at his office; a move even critics of the ruling party termed "bold and remarkable".
43.
Abiy Ahmed had previously met former Oromo Liberation Front leaders including founder Lencho Letta, who had committed to peaceful participation in the political process, upon their arrival at Bole International Airport.
44.
On 1 June 2018, Abiy Ahmed announced the government would seek to end the state of emergency two months in advance of the expiration its six-month tenure, citing an improved domestic situation.
45.
Abiy Ahmed argued that policies that sanctioned arbitrary detention and torture themselves constituted extra-constitutional acts of terror aimed at suppressing opposition.
46.
An editorial on the previously pro-government website Tigrai Online arguing for the maintenance of the state of emergency gave voice to this sentiment, saying that Abiy Ahmed was "doing too much too fast".
47.
In 2018, to expand the free press in Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed invited exiled media outlets to return.
48.
However, since assuming office in April 2018, Abiy Ahmed himself had, as of March 2019, only given one press conference, on 25 August 2018 and around five months after he assumed office, where he answered questions from journalists.
49.
In June 2018, Abiy Ahmed announced the government's intention to establish an Ethiopian stock exchange in tandem with the privatization of state-owned enterprises.
50.
In May 2018, Abiy Ahmed visited Saudi Arabia, receiving guarantees for the release of Ethiopian prisoners including billionaire entrepreneur Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi, who was detained following the 2017 Saudi Arabian purge.
51.
Since taking power Abiy Ahmed has pursued a policy of expanding landlocked Ethiopia's access to ports in the Horn of Africa region.
52.
Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his efforts in ending the war.
53.
In June 2021, representatives from multiple countries called for the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Abiy Ahmed to be re-considered because of the war crimes committed in Tigray.
54.
In June 2018, Abiy Ahmed, speaking to senior commanders of the Ethiopian National Defense Force declared his intention to carry out reforms of the military to strengthen its effectiveness and professionalism, with the view of limiting its role in politics.
55.
Just after Abiy Ahmed had finished addressing the crowd a grenade was thrown and landed just 17 metres away from where he and other top officials were sitting.
56.
Abiy Ahmed believes that "Prosperity Party is committed to strengthening and applying a true federal system which recognizes the diversity and contributions of all Ethiopians".
57.
Awol Allo argues that when Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, two irreconcilable and paradoxical vision future created.
58.
Abiy Ahmed's undertook major reforms in the country and the liberation suspected to worsen the relationship with TPLF members.
59.
The central matter of the civil conflict, as portrayed by Abiy Ahmed and as reported by Seku Ture, a member of the TPLF party, is an attack on the Northern Command bases and headquarters in the Tigray region by security forces of the TPLF, the province's elected party; though such a claim is contested.
60.
The public image of Abiy Ahmed is being rapidly re-assessed by international media as increasingly grisly reports of atrocities emerge.
61.
Abiy Ahmed's government was accused of authoritarianism and restricting freedom of the press, especially since the start of the Tigray War.
62.
Abiy Ahmed was released on 5 April 2022 with bail of 50,000 Ethiopian birr.