To some, she is a lord, rehousing the weak and beautifying Ethiopia’s investment. To some, she is the “bulldozing governor”, destroying huts in line with the prophetic vision of her employer, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Adanech Abebe, the first female president of Addis Ababa — house to 6mn individuals and the office of the African Union — is at the center of a wind over the reform of one of the country’s great cities. ” Every king since Menelik II had a program for the city”, explained Arkebe Oqubay, a former governor of Addis Ababa and presently a professor at Soas in London, referring to the king who reigned from 1889 to his death in 1913. At first Addis Ababa was a resort town because Menelik’s family Taytu took a desire to the warm waters of Finfinne. Therefore Benito Mussolini sought to make it a worthwhile colonial capital during the five-year European employment from 1936, roping in the architect Le Corbusier to bring a master plan. It was the emperor Haile Selassie who brought in more European and Israeli architects in the 1960s to design the city’s landmarks— including the National Bank of Ethiopia, Africa Hall and the City Hall itself —” to make this’ great village’ a city and a true great capital”. It has since become a sprawling metropolis, complete with tall buildings and slums. Addis Ababa’s mayor Adanech Abebe, centre left, with former Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde, centre right © Amanuel Sileshi/AFP/Getty ImagesUrban redevelopment projects mean rubble from old buildings is a common sight in the capital © Michele Spatari/AFP/Getty ImagesNow Abiy and Adanech are having their turn. For Ethiopian Christmas in January, the mayor decided to” share a meal with the vulnerable residents who are facing various social problems”. But to some of those impoverished citizens, she is the cause of the problems, not the solution. ” They don’t care about the poor. They took us from the heart of the city to the outskirts to hide us away. I miss my home”, said Alemayehu Ali, a disabled man now living in a block of two-bedroom apartments in the city’s outskirts. He was among those evicted en masse from central historical neighbourhoods such as Piassa and Kazanchis. ” They gave us less than a week to pack up our lives and leave, and they came in with security. They called us in for a raffle and based on the number we got they sent us here “.Adanech, who like Abiy has become a divisive figure in Ethiopia, is unrepentant about the ambitious project to remake the country’s capital. ” We are on the way to make Addis a liveable city and an example” to Africa and the world, Adanech said in an interview in her office in a 1960s modernist building erected under Selassie. ” Addis Ababa means ‘ new flower’ and we need to make it live up to its name “.The mayor and prime minister are leading an ambitious project to modernise and beautify Ethiopia’s capital © Michele Spatari/AFP/Getty ImagesA man outside his house, which was being demolished as part of the Piassa neighbourhood redevelopment © Amanuel Sileshi/AFP/Getty ImagesAdanech’s administration is spending 71bn birr ($ 560mn ) on demolishing houses and shacks and rebuilding the city, and is harnessing the private sector to erect low-cost housing and other property developments. The ubiquitous Adanech even has her image printed on mugs sold at the gift shop of the new 4.6bn birr Chinese-built memorial to Ethiopia’s victory against Italian colonialists in the 1896 battle of Adwa. The breakneck pace of the works owes much to Abiy’s determination to showcase Addis Ababa for foreign investors as he opens up the economy. Some city officials even compare the makeover to the demolitions and pharaonic rebuilding of central Paris in the 19th century by Baron Haussmann under French Emperor Napoleon III. ” The prime minister laid out a very detailed and clear vision”, said Ethiopia’s foreign minister Gedion Timothewos. ” He wants to revitalise the status of Addis Ababa as Africa’s capital” and “leave a legacy”. French President Emmanuel Macron, right, with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed at the National Palace in Addis Ababa in December© Tiksa Negeri/Reuters A newly built terrace overlooking a building site in the Piassa neighbourhood © Michele Spatari/AFP/Getty ImagesAbiy’s government has already expanded the airport, built a national library and a science museum, installed manicured green spaces and is launching plans for shopping malls and real estate developments by Abu Dhabi-based investors. His administration has also renovated Meskel Square in the heart of Addis Ababa and the compound from where he has been ruling since 2018 and from which Menelik II conquered swaths of territory, turning it into a museum and a zoo hosting Abyssinian lions with black manes. In December, he inaugurated the renovation of the last palace of Selassie — with €25mn of French financial support and experts from the Palace of Versailles — during a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron, who hailed Abiy for opening” this part of contemporary Ethiopian history to your fellow citizens”. It will also host a big private spa, turning a swimming pool once used by Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam into a treatment facility. Much like Ethiopia’s last emperor, Abiy is eagerly supervising his modernisation project and pays frequent visits to construction sites. His plans include the Chaka Project, a new satellite city with yet another government palace complex tied to a high-end commercial real estate development on a hill above the city — which Abiy once told parliament had a price tag of up to 500bn birr — in which the state will partner with private financiers. ” The leadership and speed of the beautification is unprecedented”, said Tilahun Worku, the mayor’s chief of staff, adding that the city had 50, 000 construction workers on the project. ” People don’t deserve to live in a shanty. This should be a model for Africa”. A street being renovated in Piassa © Michele Spatari/AFP/GettyImages’We are on the way to make Addis a liveable city and an example,’ said mayor Adanech © Amanuel Sileshi/AFP/Getty Images Bulldozers, excavators and paving machines have become a common sight, while to the dismay of those who favour a multicoloured city the authorities are forcing landlords to paint all buildings white and grey. Many people have been forced out of their city-centre homes of wattle and daub and corrugated iron. Some 4, 000 families have been moved to new housing projects, some in central neighbourhoods, but many others to areas far from their schools and workplaces. Adanech said everyone displaced “gets some kind of compensation or relocation” and diplomats say foreign embassies have also been forced to part with some land. ” Abiy Ahmed is eager to showcase his vision of prosperity by demonstrating how fast his administration can do magic by beautifying the front sides of the streets with lights, new pavements and painted fences”, said Befeqadu Hailu, a well-known commentator and activist from Addis Ababa. ” People are displaced without proper notice “.Tigist Chane, a cleaner whose house in old town Piassa is about to be demolished and is fighting for compensation, complained that the project ignores the poor:” When you empty a city by throwing the poor outside of the main core, it doesn’t look, sound or feel like development”.
The plowing governor remaking’ Africa’s money’
