In April 2019, VOA’s Straight Talk Africa with Shaka Ssali examined the first year of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, weighing early openings against the challenges already visible in Ethiopia’s federation.
The broadcast frame was familiar abroad: Nobel-track diplomacy, prisoner releases, and a new tone, set against ethnic violence, contested regional bargains, and security forces whose loyalties were unclear.
Listening later, after wars in Tigray and Amhara and the centralization of Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party project, the future of Ethiopia question sounds less speculative. The cracks were already on the table.
Kept as media archive, the VOA episode marks how international conversation still hoped the remodel would hold. Hope is not a governance plan.
Sources: VOA Straight Talk Africa
