The Quest for Mama Ethiopia By: Nasser Omer Ali

There is a profound irony at the center of Horn politics today: neither Abiy Ahmed nor Isaias Afwerki is obsessed with the country they actually govern.

Both men are chasing the same mythical destination: Mama Ethiopia, the symbolic mother of the region, the imagined center of identity, history, and destiny.

Their quarrel is not simply between Eritrea and Ethiopia. It is a rivalry between two political mercenaries raised in people’s struggles, now fighting for ownership of a country that we don’t truly belongs to.

We, the Eritreans, see the pattern clearly because we have lived inside it for half a century.

I. Isaias: The First Mercenary

Long before Abiy Ahmed, there was Isaias Afwerki — the original free-floating political operator of the region. He did not rise from Eritrea’s traditional political culture. He rose by infiltrating, destabilizing, and outmaneuvering every structure he touched.

■ Inside the ELF, he fractured the movement

■ Inside the EPLF, he eliminated rivals

■ Inside EPRDF politics, he manipulated factions

■ Inside post-independence Eritrea, he dismantled every institution that could restrain him

Every step of Isaias’s rise reflected a man who saw Eritrea not as a destiny, but as a launchpad.

This is why Meles Zenawi once said:

“The problem with Eritrean elites is they think Eritrea is only for them, but Ethiopia is a shared one.”

Isaias lived this truth. His political imagination has always been Ethiopian. Look at the evidence:

■ his covert dealings with Haile Selassie and his recent admission about his interaction with the CIA

■ his games with the Derg

■ his role in the civil wars: elf vs eplf

■ his manipulation of EPRDF

■ his interference through TPLF, OLF, ONLF, and Amhara elites

■ his attempts to shape Ethiopia’s nation building strategy

■ his recent Tsimdo campaign

■ his involvement in Ethiopia’s civil war

■ his obsession with Ethiopia’s endless contradictions

These were not random calculations.

This was a long-term project: to make Eritrea his headquarters, and Ethiopia his arena. He sees Eritrea as a down payment, Ethiopia as the inheritance.

II. Abiy: The Second Mercenary

Abiy Ahmed’s rise mirrors Isaias’s almost exactly, just a generation later. He was raised inside someone else’s political house: the TPLF-dominated EPRDF.

■ groomed within the intelligence-security structure

■ marketed as the face of Oromo liberation

■ backed by Oromo elites like Lemma Megersa and Jawar Mohammed

■ installed by EPRDF to stabilize the transition

■ and then turned against the very system that created him

Abiy, like Isaias, did not rise through the organic base of his own people.

He rose through the fractures of the Ethiopian state.

He is a child of EPRDF’s contradictions, not a product of Oromo struggle.

His obsession is not Oromia. It is Ethiopia as a sacred project, the reborn empire in his imagination, the mother he believes he was destined to reclaim.

This is why the Red Sea became a theological question rather than a diplomatic one. This is why Assab was reinvented as national destiny rather than economic access. This is why he rewrote history, resurrected empire, and placed himself at the center.

Abiy is not also obsessed with Eritrea.

He is obsessed with Ethiopia’s lost glory, and Eritrea happens to stand in the way of that vision.

III. Two Men, One Mother

This is the heart of the crisis: both men want Ethiopia. One wants to shape it. The other wants to own it.

Isaias wants Ethiopia as a sphere of influence. He needs Ethiopia’s instability to remain relevant. He sees Eritrea as necessary but insufficient for his regional ambition.

Abiy wants Ethiopia as a resurrected empire. He sees Eritrea as part of the imperial past Ethiopia never fully accepted losing. He frames the Red Sea as birthright, not access.

Both men accuse each other of interference, betrayal, and expansionism. But what they really want is the same mother.

Isaias sees Eritrea as a base. Abiy sees Eritrea as inheritance. They appear to be enemies. In reality, they are rival sons fighting for the same house.

IV. The Tenant and the Landlord

There is another layer to their failure:

Both have spent time and again negotiating with the tenant instead of the landlord.

Isaias relied on Abiy as if Abiy was Ethiopia. Abiy relied on Isaias as if Isaias was Eritrea. Neither understood that no two men can privatize nations.

The landlord is:

■ the constitution

■ the people

■ the institutions

■ the historical forces that outlive every ruler

By talking only to each other: informally, secretly, personally, they produced agreements with no foundation. Everything they built collapsed once politics shifted.

By the way, the entire 2018 moment was wasted because both men personalized diplomacy instead of institutionalizing sovereignty.

V. The No Turning Point

Both men have now reached the point of no return.

Abiy’s no-turning point:

He made port claims public, official, and nationalist. He tied Eritrean sovereignty to Ethiopian identity. He cannot back down without losing political oxygen.

Isaias’s no-turning point:

He refused national reconciliation for three decades. He hollowed out Eritrea’s internal unity.

Now Eritrea faces an external threat with no institutions, no cohesion, and no prepared national defense strategy.

For the first time, both men’s obsessions collided at full force.

This is not simply a political dispute.

It is the crash of two lifelong illusions.

VI. And Here Is the Final Irony

If Ethiopia ever truly wanted to negotiate access to the sea —

even unfair access, even coercive access — its best ally has always been Isaias, not the adversaries Abiy imagines.

When Isaias told Abiy:

“You will lead us,” he meant it.

But he expected Abiy to return the same devotion by saying that the elder revolutionary, the man who survived the Derg, the TPLF, and the EPLF wars

should share the leadership of a broader Horn project.

Abiy misunderstood the offer. He thought Isaias was surrendering influence. He didn’t realize Isaias was offering him apprenticeship.

Both men wanted to lead Ethiopia.

Both thought the other would step aside. Both misread each other.

And both now stand exposed.

VII. The People Are Not Fighting for Mama Ethiopia, They Are Fighting for Survival

Eritreans and Ethiopians want peace, dignity, and sovereignty. We do not want empire. We do not want dominance.We do not want to be bargaining chips.

But we are caught between two men who see nations as chessboards, borders as inconveniences, and people as pawns in their personal quest for the same mother.

Their conflict is not our destiny. Their obsession is not our identity.

The future belongs to the people who refuse to inherit their illusions.