Ethnic Federalism in Ethiopia: Challenges and Prospects

Many ethnic minorities are geographically dispersed and find themselves in all nooks and corners of Ethiopia and now become the most vulnerable target of ethnic federalism. All priorities in areas of education, work, investment and etc are given to those who are dubbed ¿Sons of the soil¿ while other settlers have been politically and economically marginalized and their families have been targeted for displacement and destabilization. A long these divisions, the minorities dwelling in numerically dominant ethnic group have been suffer from social segregation, identity crisis, and political exclusion and economically marginalized. The fact that organization of the state is largely based on ethnicity has given rise to sub national units that are asymmetrical in size and capacity. The dilemma of ethnic based territorial units and ethno linguistic orientation of the geographical configuration of the federal state has provoked harsh criticisms. The cruxes of most of these criticisms are that it is perilous experiment more likely to exacerbate ethnic tensions, minority segregations and militate against national unity¿¿