By Lul Gatkuoth Gatluak

Gambella President Mrs Alemitu Omod

The appointment of President Alemitu Omod and Dr Gatluak Ruon Jal as Vice president of Gambella Ethiopia Regional State by Dr Abiy Ahmed Ali, Prime Minister of Ethiopia is widely seen as a turning point as far as violence in the region is concerned.

Without doubt, it is a long overdue move regional citizens decries to see happen for two years. The Gambella region has witnessed a rise in intercommunal violence since March 2023, following an incident in which nine individuals were killed and 17 others were injured during church prayer in Wanthou. A week later, four people were killed in Nyenenyang. Within the same week, a dozen were killed in Makot, Itang, Tharpam, and it soon spread to Gambella town.

This ethnic base violence was frequent, pitting ethnic groups against each other and leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake. Residents have endured such flare-ups for years, watching helplessly as tribal tensions and political neglect in the volatile region fuel recurrent violence. It is a challenge President Alemitu Omot and Vice president Gatluak will work hard to reverse.

Besides the issue of changing the path of the political sphere in the Gambella, the move of appointing the woman as the President of Gambella, is also fulfilling Dr. Abiy’s vision of striving for gender equality in the country. Since taking power in April 2018, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed has appointed women to half of his government’s ministerial posts, including the job of defence Minister.

While explaining his decision in a speech to Parliament, Mr Abiy said women were “less corrupt than men” and would help restore peace and stability. Ethiopia is now the only African state after Rwanda to have equal gender representation in the cabinet. Dr. Abiy had also selected Sahle-Work Zewde to lead the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia as its fifth and first female president.

Historically, we heard only a few Ethiopian women in important positions like the Queen of Sheba who appears in the Hebrew Bible and Empress Zewditu when she took over after the death of her father Menelik II.

In summary, the appointment of Alemitu Omot and Dr. Gatluak Ruon Jal has been jubilant given the fact that, the region had been engulfed for endless violence. Ethnic conflict has frequently erupted in the region, resulting in death, destruction of property and displacement.

several buses were ambushed, and death toll and injuries are always unbearable. We pray, President Alemitu Omot and Vice President Gatluak don’t allow ethnic base violence to repeat itself.

Respectively

Lul Gatkuoth Gatluak.

The author is a political commentator