From Zimbabwe to Sudan and now Ethiopia, it seems Africa is having problems dismantling from the back of the military tiger.
A coup attempt in Ethiopia has been crushed, Ethiopian Prime Minister, Dr. Abiy Ahmed, has said in a national broadcast. But this is not before a regional government leader had been killed. The details are still sketchy but the country’s army chief is confirmed killed. How come the army chief was killed in Addis while the coup was launched in a region is part of the puzzle. But the Prime Minister confirmed that very senior military officers and some other persons had been killed.
Sections of the international media, especially the wire services are reporting on-going gun shots in both Addis and the Amhara regional capital where the attempt seemed to have been concentrated.
The coup attempt must be the culmination of previous security breaches. In a January 5th, 2019 piece in the New York Times, Prof Mahmood Mamdani, foremost African political scientist wrote from his base in Columbia University in New York, warning on the dangers of ethnic federalism which Ethiopia is experimenting although the Prime Minister has been a leadership sensation in Africa of late.
