Tom Gardner is the Economist’s Africa correspondent based in Ethiopia from 2016 to 2022, where he early on covered anti-government protests, then eventually the reform that brought Abiy Ahmed to power and global spotlight. Tom tracked the Prime Minister’s ascent, as the previously unknown figure went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize and stunned the world by plunging the country into a devastating war that claimed the lives of half a million people. Tom himself was expelled from Ethiopia in May 2022 for covering that war.
He has since published a book, titled “The Abiy Project: God, Power and War in the New Ethiopia.” He spoke with Curate Oromia about this tumultuous period, about the man at the center of it, and about the current state of affairs in Ethiopia and the Horn. Read more