Religion is a deeply personal thing and how one chooses to worship (or not worship) The Creator is nobody’s business. Moreover, you can’t blame a belief system for all the sins of some of its strict adherents. So this is not about his faith but how he interprets his faith by surrounding himself with people who have same mindset. You can use one’s professed faith as a data point when studying a political practitioner, specially when it bleeds into foreign policy and manifests itself in willingness to use force or coercion to enforce beliefs. This is why Tom Gardner, author of “The Abiy Project: God, Power and War in the New Ethiopia” describes Abiy as a “Pentecostal Putin”—part preacher, part spy, and self-styled messianic leader.
If you are looking for the political philosophy of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, you won’t find it in his Medemer book series because Medemer incorporates elements of socialism, liberalism, conservatism and fascism. But you will find it in his professed religion. There is a huge overlap between his faith (Prosperity Gospel) and his political beliefs (Prosperity Party.) He is reportedly devoutly religious when it comes to his faith and he created, chairs, and directs the political party Prosperity in the shape of his faith.
A foundational belief of Prosperity Gospel is “positive confession.” Don’t say you are hungry (“negative confession”) say you are blessed (“positive confession.”) The two are equally true but you are emphasizing one. If you are saying I have read this in secular books, you are right: the whole premise of “The Law of Attraction”—and most self-help books—is the power of manifestation. Think it, and it will be. You still have to work for it, but don’t clutter your mind with negative thoughts. Abiy Ahmed has applied this tenet to everything domestic and foreign:
Examples:
Mindset: Abiy Ahmed criticized EPRDF for declaring “our number one enemy is poverty” (negative confession) “instead of emphasizing how much we desire prosperity.” (positive confession.) This is standard law of attraction: the subconscious mind is non-judgmental and it’s attracted to that which you think of: good or bad.
Agriculture: To say “Ethiopia is one of the world’s largest grain importers (spent $3.6 billion in 2022 to import grain not met by domestic needs)” is negative confession. To say “Ethiopia is the largest grain exporter in Africa (exports rose from 5-6 million in 2023 to 10-15 million in 2025)” is positive confession. Focus on the positive. Sure, negative individuals might say “I don’t believe that the year 2023, when Ethiopia was barely out of one conflict and into the next, was the year Ethiopia became a net exporter”; sure The Economist (May 2025) might report Ethiopia’s claims are “statistical illusion.” But these are negative confessors. Stay positive!
Development: “95 million out of #Ethiopia’s 126.5 million citizens live in the countryside, living highly vulnerable lives due to drought, conflict and environment contributing to making Ethiopia the poorest of the poor” is negative confession. Building glitzy “corridors of development” that appear to have been constructed by Temu is “positive confession.”
Military Might: The Ethiopian armed forces are such a role model for Africa—“Ethiopia gets so many invitations from African countries to teach them, I can’t accept them all,” said Field Marshall Berhanu Jula– is the ultimate positive confession. To report that this model military force travels with militias and special forces who record themselves doing the worst things ever recorded —burning people alive, throwing them over the hill, torturing them—is negative confession and should be never reported by State media.
Ports: “I don’t have a port” is such negative confession. “I have a Navy” is a positive confession.
Law: “I have no legal case to make to get Ethiopia a port” is negative confession. “Historically, going back to antiquity, Ethiopia had sea access” is positive confession. Law is negative, history is positive.
Diplomacy: “I have been traveling all over the world and nobody will support my claim that Assab belongs to me” is such a negative confession. “I have been traveling all over the world and the diplomats have been very sympathetic to my dilemma: I am halfway there!” is positive confession. Breakthroughs, even short-lived ones like the deal with Somaliland, are due to “divine intervention.”
War: There are no wars in Ethiopia (such a no-aura word, the worst “negative confession”): Ethiopia only has “divine missions” ordered by the “God of Ethiopia.” That’s positive confession. Deacons aligned with Prosperity showed up IN BATTLEFIELDS during the Tigray War (2020-22) to bless the war and define their opponents as disrespectful (declining religious mediators!) and godless people. Wars are not about right vs wrong but good vs evil.
Earlier this year, in a long free-flowing interview, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed allowed himself to express a little “negative confession” because the interviewer ambushed him with it. He was asked what annoys him about the state of affairs in Ethiopia. He listed four. Can you guess what they are? Guess and then check to see if you guessed right: his negative confession is that Ethiopians have too much negative confession.
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