The United States always praises the ingenuity of skills mastered in constructing the Hoover Dam. They often idolize this dam by saying, “an American icon”, “a monument to the ingenuity of the nation’s engineers and the power of its machines”. The Americans have never been short of ululations. They say “Hoover Dam is the symbol of an era when an urban, industrial America reveled in harnessing its natural resources.”
No doubt the US will never accept any form of negotiations that potentially hinders its natural rights of using the waters of the Colorado River. Equally, it had never before accepted such calls and will never entertain any request about how the construction, the filling, and operations of the Hoover Dam was planned or will be handled. Mexico,as a lower riparian country, might have requested the US administration to consider for unhindered flows of the water as it shares the Colorado River with the US. Instead, the US had built the massive Hoover Dam decades ago regardless of the volume of water that flows to Mexico might be reduced. Whether Mexico liked it or not, the US fills and stores the water. That is that.
Here in Africa, against the course of nature and beyond any logical undertakings, Ethiopia, the major source and the home of the Nile River, is dictated by the lower riparian Egypt.For years, even though the source of the majority of the Nile being Ethiopia, Egypt drinks the Nile waters alone. Ethiopia never had that chance from its gift and when it attempted so, is forced and pressured as if the Nile doesn’t belong to it at all.That should have been unacceptable in the eyes of the US when Egypt persuaded the US to interfere in the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
Egypt had never troubled it self to realize the deprivations and life-threatening realities the people of the source of the Nile had endured for centuries. Predecessors and current Egyptian governments never had a second thought to the people of Blue Nile who contribute the lion’s share to the Nile,deserve equity share if not entirety of the waters.
Since memorial, Ethiopia never attempted to halt the flow of the Nile waters even at times when it could. Never did. The Blue Nile is where 86 percent of the whole of the Nile waters get from. Ethiopia contributes 77 billion cubic meters. In return, it gets a zero share. Egypt, a net recipient among the down stream countries, has never opted that Ethiopia warrants to have the hefty shares and utilizing the waters.
Ethiopians lack safer drinking water. The mass of the population lives and sleeps in darkness. 70 percent of Ethiopians do not have access to these basic utilities while the Nile keeps washing down and transports all the fertile soils of Ethiopia. It may not occur to Egypt that Ethiopia, as the second populous country in Africa, with millions of malnourished children,requires to have every available resource channeled towards taming the underdevelopment hinged its growth. Now history has changed and it’s changed forever. Ethiopia is claiming its natural right. The people and the government of Ethiopia have now looking for the judgment of reality and impartiality.
One issue has come stark clear that whoever political power and administration that assumes top leadership in Ethiopia, will be required to prioritize safeguarding Ethiopia’s absolute and natural right on the Nile. Thanks to Egypt’s self-serving ideology, securing Ethiopia’s God-given natural rights have solidified the foundation of irreversible traction.
The Nile has opened up a new chapter. It has changed the future of Ethiopia’s political agenda. National elections might not be the same again in Ethiopia.The people of Ethiopia from now on will require their candidates about campaigning strategies. The people will request how political leaders could prioritize and maintain the absolute and sovereign rights of Ethiopia on the Nile.
The future will hold it that as the coming generations open eyes, the truth will come out to oblige those accountable. It is not hidden from reality that the US administration not only defends its rights. It goes beyond to defend even the rights of Israel. The same logic applies to Ethiopia that its people have every natural and logical reason to drink from their wells as the US and every upper riparian country have. Now Ethiopians are clearly saying Nile waters will no more be Aladdin’s cave for Egypt. It will never be any more!
