Editor’s Note: Malkaa Guutuu’s previous article on the subject can be read here.

By Malkaa Guutuu*

It is a sad reality that the Ethiopian Empire is saddled with all manners of socio-economic and political problems that seem to only get bigger and more complex with time. Generations in that ill-fated country have now grown up with grinding poverty, recurring famine, which have consumed the lives of millions, and inter-group conflicts caused mainly by political and national oppression of one group by another, etc. Millions have fled these tragedies and continue to do so, in some cases, taking incredible chances against their own lives.

My goal in this article is not to rehash these tragedies, nor argue their causes. For that, one may consult the numerous publications that have been produced about these gut-wrenching human tragedies. Instead, my main purpose is to use insights from game theory to make the case that the most recent “alliance” between G7 and some Oromo Galtuus, who gracelessly consider themselves a faction of the Oromo Liberation Front, is a costly undertaking that further complicates the ongoing saga in the empire, because it sends dangerous signals to the main stakeholders. In doing so, I will also identify a necessary condition that must be observed by sensible political actors if a stable “Nash Equilibrium,” solving the age-old problems afflicting the country, is to be found.¹

Let me first say a word or two about game theory, also known as interactive decision theory. As an academic subject, it has been around for a few decades, and has a wide range of applicability in real life, where human relations are governed by strategic interactions. For instance, it has been used to explain why superpowers engage in the arms race, which everyone and their uncle knows to be sub-optimal. Although the birth of this theory is conventionally associated with John Nash’s doctoral thesis at Princeton, the genesis of its modern treatment goes back to earlier works, such as Von Neumann’s 1928 “Zur Theorie der Gesellaschaftsspiele” in “Mathematische Annalen.”

In game theory, there is a very simple game known as the prisoners’ dilemma, in which two actors simultaneously decide to either cooperate or handicap each other. If both players cooperate, their joint payoff is maximized. But, the game’s Nash Equilibrium is different from this outcome, because players have incentives to deviate from this socially-optimal result. Thus, rational players choose to handicap each other, ending up with inferior outcomes. It could be argued that Menelik and his brain-trust were playing this game, when their “alliance” with Gobana effectively created the current Ethiopia. Perhaps, thinking of the joint payoff (foolish), or assuming the game was going to be repeated (perhaps, correct in the long run), or motivated by some other irrational reason (possible), the latter chose to collaborate, while the former clearly had the opposite in mind. The outcomes were obvious: the Amhara elites ended up with superior outcomes, and the other guys went home with less than what they had before.

In what can only be described as an audacious step, if futile and even dangerous, the so-called G7 is trying to pull another one of those moves against the Oromo nation, by forming a “partnership” with a bunch of pathetic individuals, who are misusing the name of the Oromo Liberation Front. I am convinced this approach is not just misguided, but will entail harsh consequences. In a game of prisoners’ dilemma, defrauding a strategic competitor can happen only once if the players are rational. Menelik and his men could be excused for thinking that they were playing a one-shot game of prisoners’ dilemma, since, it might safely be assumed, they did not know anything about repeated games of prisoners’ dilemma, let alone much more sophisticated dynamic games played under imperfect and incomplete information. The G7 “geniuses” are pulling all the strings to play the old game with a complete set of new characters, by crowning Oromo clowns as their strategic partners. If being half-wits disqualified people from getting involved in politics, we would never see the architects of this design participate in any political affair. Ethiopia’s current political landscape requires much more adept touch, finesse, lots of understanding, not to mention a certain dose of humility and a ton of hard work, not clever-by-half and manipulative measures we just witnessed from G7 and its boosters.

Let me state a fact which ought to have been self-evident to G7, which seems to be preoccupied with an impossible task of re-instituting a version of Ethiopia that is dead for good, using measures that are stale and uninspired. Even Atse Meles’ TPLF did not attempt to play this game with the OLF, the vanguard of the Oromo National Liberation Movement. What the TPLF did was rent, under duress, some prisoners of war, who never had a say in any strategic political decision-making process. The actions of the TPLF when it created the so-called Oromo People’s Democratic Organization are qualitatively different from the hallucination that the OLF would be a party to any agreement that would potentially mean the dismantling of Oromia.

The OLF, despite its current difficulties, knows that history and credibility are important considerations in any dynamic game of mixed strategies, even in a repeated game of prisoners’ dilemma. The ongoing power play in the Ethiopian empire is a typical dynamic game with several actors, multitudes of strategic configurations and equilibrium outcomes, and thus necessitates credible actions by intelligent and rational players. To state the obvious, Oromo political leaders cannot forget the Menelik-Gobana “alliance” which kicked into effect a century-long agony of their people; they (we) cannot afford not to remember the Harka-Mura and Harma-Mura in Aannoollee, Calanqoo and other places. We can’t and will not forget how a foolish move by one of our own effectively resulted in the dispossession of our land, the inability to use and develop our language and culture, and being reduced to second-class citizens in our own country.

By making a terrible political move against the Oromo nation, the architects of G7 have thus clearly underestimated genuine Oromo political leaders’ capacity for strategic thinking, in effect exposing themselves to have no credibility as serious political players in shaping the future of the Ethiopian empire. Instead of marshaling their limited resources to come up with a credible plan of actions based on proper and careful analyses the Oromo question demands, they have opted for a foolish bluff that, unfortunately, will have dire consequences. One glaring negative consequence of their misguided and shortsighted step is that it makes a peaceful resolution of the ongoing crises in the Ethiopian Empire more remote than before. Any attempt at rerunning the old game one more time, as if the Oromo people and their leadership are oblivious to what happened yesterday and have not updated their information set, is surprisingly inept and will not produce optimal outcomes.

Sadly, I am not optimistic that there are leaders in the die-hard Ethiopianist camp willing and/or capable of reflection of the issues raised in this article. However, if there are any who truly care about the well-being of people they claim to speak for, they need to quit blindly beating the dead horse and engage, in more productive and serious ways, the Oromo Liberation Front and representatives of the other national groups (e.g. the ONLF) – the grass-roots organizations representing the interests of their respective nations. If there are any responsible and sensible Ethiopianist elites out there, whose goal is to bring about lasting and positive changes in the empire, they should honor the following condition, at a minimum. The stipulation is obviously not a substitute, but a prerequisite, for concrete steps that could be hammered out between self-interested actors (representatives of different national groups in this case), in order to begin to solve the age-old problems afflicting the empire. Oromo political and civic leaders will be in the forefront of identifying and proposing these concrete steps if the Ethiopianist camp approaches the Oromo question with the seriousness and care it deserves.

Here is what the ascending Oromo nationalists’ camp requires, rather demands, from the competing camp(s) if there is to be a peaceful resolution of the country’s problems. Do not repeat the tragic mistakes of G7! There are no fine prints to it. The name of the political game in the Ethiopian empire today is a mixed-strategy dynamic game involving several actors, which have different strengths and weaknesses, as well as a variety of strategic interests and goals. Critically, these disparate groups choose over a number of actions available to them, based on a probability distribution of possible actions, because they are operating with uncertainty. In these types of games, non-credible moves are out. Any group that wishes to live in peace and harmony with the Oromo people in the 21st century, therefore, must learn from the dangerous mistake that G7 just committed in playing a very amateurish and second-rate game. It is imperative to avoid shortsighted tricks and bluffs that underestimate the wisdom of one’s strategic competitors, and devalues one’s credibility as a serious player, in a political game that requires a great deal of intelligence and understanding. In order to be taken seriously by genuine Oromo political leaders and organizations as potential strategic partners, the die-hard unionist groups must first demonstrate that they have the seriousness, competence and credibility it takes to play the very complex political games in the Horn of Africa. If the Ethiopiansts heed this advice, there just might be a stable sub-game perfect Nash Equilibrium, solving the multifarious and intricate problems the empire has become infamous for. The equilibrium solution(s), by the way, need not be zero-sum game!

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1. Nash Equilibrium is a solution concept describing a set of strategy choices and the resulting payoffs in a game involving N players (individuals, firms, states, etc), in which each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing its strategy unilaterally.

* Malkaa Guutuu can be reached at malkaa.guutuu@gmail.com.