Ethiopia’s ruling party is rewriting history to justify a false claim over Eritrea’s Red Sea port. This is not a strategy — it is a desperate and dangerous trajectory that risks dragging the war-prone Horn of Africa into another cycle of instability and conflict.
It has become a declared mission of Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party to “revise the narrative” of how Ethiopia lost access to the sea — particularly the port of Assab, one of Eritrea’s two principal ports.
In his now-infamous address to Parliament — an audience reduced to taking notes and applauding on cue — the Prime Minister announced: “We need to revise the history and narrative of how Ethiopia lost its connection to the sea coast, with distinct reference to the port of Assab.”
Over the past two years, this revisionist project — the so-called Red Sea quest — has gathered full momentum. Turn on any major Ethiopian TV channel or scroll through state-aligned social media, and you might think Ethiopia faces no greater crisis than its lack of a coastline. Poverty, inflation, corruption, and civil strife are conveniently pushed aside in favor of a single manufactured obsession: the imagined “right” to Assab.
No international law appears firm enough to restrain this political fantasy. No historical record is too sacred to be rewritten. Almost in a daily basis, Assab is being recast not as Eritrean territory, but as an Ethiopian birthright unjustly taken — an ancestral wound awaiting restoration.
Fantasy as Policy
The longer this campaign of distortion continues, the more detached from reality it becomes. Abiy Ahmed seems intent on turning the “Red Sea question” into the defining crusade of his rule — his imagined legacy, the mark of a “great ruler” in Ethiopian history.
Yet while he dreams of lost coastlines, Ethiopia is crumbling within. Every indicator — economic, political, and social — signals deep crisis. Inflation is crushing households. Regional conflicts are tearing the country apart. The state survives through coercion and propaganda. Amid this turmoil, Abiy appears convinced that rewriting history might redeem his collapsing present.
From podiums and televised lectures, he does not even recognize let alone heal the nation’s wounds but to project power through illusion. The Prosperity Party’s propaganda machine keeps spinning, generating slogans and myths to stoke nationalism and distract from failure.
The Core Myths of the Red Sea Narrative
Myth no. 1. “Ethiopia was unjustly stripped of its coastline.”
This falsehood is the cornerstone of the entire narrative. The Prosperity Party portrays the loss of Assab as an international injustice — a wound inflicted by outsiders. In reality, Eritrea’s sovereignty and borders were affirmed by the Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) under the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, following the 1998–2000 border war. Ethiopia formally accepted these decisions including the current Prime Minister. To deny them now is not patriotism — it is political deceit.
Myth no. 2. “Ethiopia’s survival depends on owning a port.”
Repeated endlessly in state media, this claim is emotional, not economic. Dozens of landlocked nations — from Switzerland to Rwanda to Botswana — thrive through trade, cooperation, and governance, not conquest. Ethiopia’s challenge is not its geography, but its governance. The Prosperity Party’s fixation on maritime access serves as a smokescreen for policy paralysis and internal decay.
Myth no. 3. “Ethiopia has historic ownership of Assab.”
This assertion collapses under historical scrutiny. The Red Sea coast — from Massawa to Assab — was for centuries under Ottoman, Egyptian, Italian, and later British control. Ethiopia never exercised sovereign authority there. The “historic ownership” claim is a relic of imperial nostalgia, dismantled in 1991 when Eritrea achieved de facto independence and confirmed in 1993 through a UN-observed referendum.
Myth no. 4. “Eritrea owes its ports and independence to Ethiopia’s permission.”
This narrative — increasingly voiced by Abiy’s inner circle — suggests that Eritrea exists only because Ethiopia “allowed” it to secede. It is a dangerous distortion. Eritrea’s independence was earned through a 30-year armed struggle and internationally recognized through referendum, not by Ethiopian grace. Such rhetoric does not express pride; it signals delusion and arrogance, risking renewed hostility across the Horn.
Myth no. 5. “The Red Sea is Ethiopia’s destiny.”
Perhaps the most perilous of all, this myth transforms geography into theology. Abiy now frames the Red Sea as Ethiopia’s divine inheritance — a messianic tone that replaces diplomacy with destiny. When leaders begin invoking fate to justify expansion, history tells us what follows: conflict, not glory.
Regional Fallout and Rising Alarm
Abiy’s Red Sea rhetoric does not end at Ethiopia’s borders. It is unsettling the entire region. Eritrea, fiercely protective of its sovereignty, sees these statements as open provocation. Djibouti, Somalia, and Sudan are also watching anxiously, recognizing how quickly rhetoric can spiral into confrontation in a region already scarred by fragile borders and ethnic fault lines.
Even the African Union, headquartered in Addis Ababa, faces a quiet dilemma: unable to openly challenge its host government, yet fully aware that such revisionism undermines the AU’s founding principles — sovereignty, non-aggression, and peaceful coexistence.
Meanwhile, Western governments issue cautious statements about “dialogue” and “regional stability.” Behind diplomatic restraint, however, lies growing concern that Abiy’s Ethiopia is drifting into delusion — and perhaps, confrontation.
A Nation Drowning in Myths
Ethiopia’s tragedy today is not only its political dysfunction but its war on truth. The Prosperity Party’s narrative about Assab is not about ports or history — it is about power and distraction. By manufacturing an external enemy and promising a return to lost glory, Abiy Ahmed seeks to divert attention from a collapsing state and his own eroding legitimacy.
The irony is bitter: this mythmaking comes at the very moment when the nation can least afford illusion. The Tigray war has left deep scars. Oromia remains restless. Amhara is in open revolt. Inflation and repression suffocate daily life. And yet, instead of addressing these crises, the government is busy writing history as escapism.
It is the oldest trick in politics: when legitimacy collapses at home, invent an enemy abroad. But Ethiopia’s salvation will not come from the sea. It will come from confronting its own truths.
Reclaiming Truth, Not Territory
The Prosperity Party’s obsession with Assab reveals a deeper malaise — the belief that control over narrative equals control over destiny. Abiy Ahmed’s government has blurred the line between myth and policy, between storytelling and statehood.
History, however, is unforgiving to such experiments. Leaders who chase immortality through myth often end up consumed by it. The Prime Minister who once promised reform and unity now presides over a nation fractured by fear, fantasy, and fatigue.
If Ethiopia truly seeks renewal, it must begin not by reclaiming ports, but by reclaiming truth — the only foundation upon which any nation can stand.