Tempted more than ten times, I find myself on the verge of offering my opinion on the controversial restructuring of new districts, zones, and councils. Yet, each time my pen approaches the page, it recoils—not from fear, but from the knowledge that truth, however noble, is a double-edged blade.
This moment is not just about boundaries drawn on a map; it is about the subtle artistry of political gerrymandering, cloaked in the rhetoric of administrative efficiency. These reconfigurations are neither accidental nor benign. They are dialectical maneuvers that rearrange representation, redistribute power, and reshape identity.
Still, I pause.
For every paragraph I compose, I recognize that words carry a seismic power—they can awaken a society, but also alienate stakeholders and ignite unintended antagonism. My observations, while anchored in truth, may disturb not only insiders who have a vested stake in the status quo, but also external actors who interpret silence as consent and critique as rebellion.
I do not withhold my thoughts out of timidity, but out of responsibility. The pen must be sharp, yet deliberate. In times of crisis, opinion must not inflame, it must illuminate. And though the pen is poised, it waits for the hour when expression will not be mistaken for provocation, and critique will not be seen as heresy, but as a necessary calibration of collective conscience.
Until then, I remain a restrained observer, burning with insight, but governed by wisdom. We should never gamble the peace we enjoyed in the last seven years with shortsightedness.
@highlightAbiy Ahmed Ali Office of the Prime Minister-Ethiopia
