PHOTO: Abiy Amed. Photo credit: Brookings Institution.
Abiy Amed recently awarded for the Nobel Peace Prize on October 11th, 2019 is an Ethiopian Prime Minister who was rewarded prior to his noticeable efforts to end hostilities and establish peace between his country Ethopia and Eritrea. After obtaining the Noble Peace Prize, his ability seems to be continuously tested, this time not by the Eritreans, but by Egypt over building a dam in the Nile River.
The Grand Renaissance Dam, considered to be one of the biggest dam projects in Africa has been initiated by Ethiopia in the Nile River. Ethiopia says this multi-billion project is very vital for their future economy, but it has slowed down due to oppositions from neighboring countries with the main obstacle being Egypt. The importance of the longest River in Africa is not suppose to surprise anyone and should therefore explain in summary why there should be a dispute over who has control over what?
The Egyptian farmers according to reports, are afraid that the completion of the dam will bring about shortage in water for agriculture, but the Ethiopian leaders have denied that there would be no such effects after the dam is completed. The two countries have been on this disagreement for months now and it seems like Ethiopia has finally had enough.
On Tuesday October 22nd during the Parliaments Q&A session, eleven days after grabbing the Noble Peace Prize, Abiy Amed said Ethiopia was ready to do it the hard way to finalize the dam project in the following statement:
Some say things about the use of force by Egypt. It should be underlined that no could stop Ethiopia from building a dam.”
If there Is need to go to war to accomplish the task, we could ready millions. If some could fire a missile, others could use bombs, but that is not in the best interest of all of us,” he added
Former Ethiopian leaders had commenced this project, and the now regime is desperate to get done with it as soon as possible, because according to them, it is worth completing.
The dam according to sources is worth $5bn and the largest in the African continent, which is approximately complete, and is expected to provide much needed electricity to Ethiopia’s 100million people. You can therefore see reasons why they are ready to go an extra mile to achieving this goal despite the obstacles.
Egypt who are the main opposition and with a similar population as Ethiopia fears that the dam project will reduce the water, as the Nile River is the main of fresh water and an employer of many citizens. The Pro-government media in Cairo have cast the issue as a national security threat that could warrant military action. Egypt in had earlier blamed Addis Ababa, after talks between the two countries didn’t end in an agreement.
The Egyptians seem to kick against any discussions that lead towards anything that concerns the Nile River, as 90% of their population depends more on the river. Ethiopia on the other hand responded by dismissing Cairo’s assessment of latest talks.
“The allegation that talks ended in a deadlock, is completely false”, said Ethiopia Minister for Water and Energy. Selishi Bekele. Some progress has been made, but there are some pending issues which can be solved before completing the construction of the dam he added.
What are your thoughts about this pending and worrying issue?
