Professor Paulos Milkias Ph.D.
A scapegoat is a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, or faults of others, for reasons of expediency. The term is rooted in the Bible, where a goat was released into the wilderness after the Jewish chief priest had symbolically laid the sins of the people of Israel upon it (Read Lev. 16).
The release from jail of TPLF kingpins Sebhat Nega, Mulu Gebre Egziabher, Kidusan Nega, Abadi Zemu, and Abay Woldu has angered all genuine Ethiopian Nationalists because the deed cannot be logically explained. First of all, suggesting that sending old people who should normally be residing in monasteries to jail is inhumane goes against the decision to continue to hunt Nazi criminals and make them accountable for their misdeeds more than 75 years ago, and insinuating that the culprits who were captured in the field of war while fighting against Sovereign Ethiopia and by doing so wrought wanton destruction upon the country as well as spawning the death of over one hundred thousand men women and children cannot be charged with criminal acts defies logic.
The sudden action had confounded all genuine Ethiopian nationalists, so Abiy had to find a scapegoat and explain the episode away in a wildly bizarre and oxymoronic statement that he was also “horrified” when he heard of the decision to release those renegade TPLF officials. These renegades were none other than those who created the TPLF and plotted against the motherland seeking its balkanization. But in his twisted logic.
Abiy was implying someone else released the goaled insurgents, in this case, Gideon Timotewos, the minister of justice.
Does Abiy really believe that he can hoodwink rational Ethiopians with this asinine spin? Could any minister take such drastic action without the Prime Minister’s clear directives? That is not at all possible except in the world of delusion similar to that of Alice in Wonderland or happenings unfolding during the magical journeys of Harry Potter!