Koki Abesolome ·Follow
Oromummaa’s Adulteration of Waaqeffanna, Gadaa and Irreechaa Is Tearing the Oromo Fabric Apart
“Oromummaa today is war. They stole our name for their politics,” – Gadaa Boru Guyyo of Karayu
“Oromummaa is not Oromo. It is a party ideology wearing cultural clothes,” – The late Honorable Bulcha Demeksa,
“The activists I mobilized… now see me as a traitor,” – Jawar Mohammed after he called for reining in Oromummaa and shifting toward reconciliation
Preface
An Ethiopian political scientist who read an earlier draft of this article advised me to: “Tone it down and not add to an already polarized political discourse… As an Oromo yourself you have a better than half chance of influencing the movement if your treatment of the subject is diplomatic.”
By design, Oromummaa is a political project that has deliberately adulterated Waaqeffanna, Gadaa, and Irreechaa and weaponized them as political wedge issues to stoke animosity. This is driven by “us vs. them” calculus of a zero-sum game. Part of its operational principle is to avoid reasoned dialogue both within and outside of the Oromummaa enterprise. Many prominent Oromos, including Gadaa Boru Guyyo of Karayu and the late Honorable Bulcha Demeksa have rejected this strategy as existential.
My friend’s advice was understandable at face value. Yet political sensitivity becomes complicity when an ideology is weaponized and shielded by a sanctified narrative of cultural revival. What is needed is not rhetorical restraint but moral clarity. This is not a rejection of reasoned dialogue. It is a recognition of the limits of reason where the path for reasoned dialogue is closed shut. The cries of Oromummaa’s victims deserve unvarnished candor and unconstrained pushback.
• “They cut my wife’s belly open and killed her and the unborn child, saying a Christian child will not be born on our land. They did this in front of our children.” (Video, 2:30 mark).
• “Who will stand up for Harar? They have chased us. It is over. At this rate, we will not even find a place to be buried”(Video testimony).
• “The people of Amaro are surrounded by Oromo on three sides. We are denied access to other regions. It is hard to explain our suffering in words. We are invaded and butchered, and our existence as an ethnic group is in peril.” (Amaro representative addressing the Prime Minister at the 11th Ordinary Session of Parliament).
• “My 8-month-old child started crying. I heard an attacker say, ‘Look there, look there, before they shot in our direction. They killed my baby. My other child was shot in the back; the bullet came out at her neck. I held her against my chest and prayed to Allah to save her” (Grieving Amhara father, Today News Africa, June 2022).
These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern documented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, and UN rapporteurs, among others. Unimaginable killings have been carried chanting slogans (“Oromia for Oromos only,” “Ethiopia out of Oromia,” “a Christian child will not be born on our land,” etc.).
When multiple international human-rights organizations document crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing carried out under the banner of Oromummaa, calls for “toned-down” language cease to be prudent; they border on complicity.
2. A Complex Problem Demanding Candor and Perspective
The story of Ethiopian politics is a story of different political groups brutalizing each other. In most cases the predator-victim relationships continue for many decades even after the vanquished fully submitted. The Amhara, the Oromo, Tigray, Somali/Afar, etc. have done it in turn. Followers of Christianity, Islam, Waaqeffanna have gone through it both as perpetrators and victims.
Oromo was both a perpetrator of unimaginable atrocities (during Gada expansion) and a victim of unimaginable atrocity (during Menilik’s southward expansion and power consolidation). In framing my argument, I am neither undermining the historical context and legitimate grievance that justifies the rise of Oromummaa as a liberation ideology. My focus is on the nature of its narrative that romanticizes the violent Gadaa expansion as an egalitarian and peaceful democratic order and its false narratives regarding Menilik’s era.
My focus on Oromummaa should not be seen as a monolithic, malevolent force. Oromummaa is a spectrum that is seen in varying voices within its rank. However, the dominating force is the extremist wing of Asafa Jalata that is supremacist and violent.
This is evident in Jalatta’s articles. In The Present Phase of the Oromo National Movement, Jalata champions the OLA, stating: “every Oromo has a moral and national obligation to support the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) financially, ideologically, and intellectually. ” In The Path to Freedom, he stresses: “We must double our support for the OLA that is engaging in implementing the Oromummaa mission.”
This article is framed with two objectives in mind. First and foremost, it Second, exposes the political adulteration of Waaqeffanna, Gadaa, and Irreechaa is unravelling Oromo at the seams. It also shows the crisis has gone out of its creators’ hands. Those who try to change the trajectory of Oromummaa’s path find themselves a target of wrath by the very true believers they indoctrinated.
Second, it examines the four overlapping phases through which Oromummaa transformed from liberation ideology to supremacist practice: (1) conceptualization, (2) institutionalization inside state and party structures, (3) mass mobilization, and (4) politically enforced implementation on the ground.
3. Oromummaa’s Sanctified Lies and Unsustainable Internal Tensions
For half a century, Oromo nationalist intellectuals used sanctified lies to create one of the most effective mobilizing myths anchored in two contrived storylines:
(1) Romanticized Gadaa as a peaceful pan-Oromo egalitarian democracy, Waaqeffanna as an original pan-Oromo faith, and Irreechaa as a pan-Oromo ritual and the nucleus of a unified culture, and
(2) Demonized Emperor Menelik II as a colonizer who deliberately destroyed the Gadaa paradise through genocide that claimed 5 million lives and enslaved the rest.
The sanctified lies that gave Oromummaa a powerful mobilizing vigor carried within its womb the seeds of its own undoing, fomenting unreconcilable differences and sprouting unsustainable tension in its body politics.
To start with, neither Gadaa nor Waaqeffanna nor Irreechaa was Pan-Oromo. They were localized traditions selectively elevated and generalized to craft a unifying national identity.
3.1. The Myths of Pan-Oromo Egalitarian and Peaceful Gadaa
Megersa, Østebø, and others document that Gadaa was not pan-Oromo. Megersa is on the record, stressing a pan-Oromo “Gadaa democracy” narrative is “a political construction rather than an ethnographic reality.” Østebø rejects the romanticized narrative as “an invented tradition” and characterizes the pan-Oromo version as “mythology.”
Many renowned Oromos and foreign writers reject the egalitarian and peaceful designation of Gadaa. They acknowledge the system was violent, and slave raiding/owning/trading. See my article “Oromummaa is a Lie: Gadaa is Part Democratic and Part Apartheid.”
3.2. The Myth of Pan-Oromo Waaqeffanna
Waaqeffanna was never a unified “religion.” Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa portrays it as a diverse set of localized beliefs, not a cohesive religion amenable to modern revival. His presentation highlights intra-Oromo variations that counters Jalata’s portrayal of it as “the heart of Oromo tradition and culture.
Tesema Ta’a shares Duressa’s view ad sees Waaqeffanna as an “indigenous religion” fragmented by geography, with practices varying widely contradicting Jalata’s Pan-Oromo faith system. The homogenized “Waaqeffanna” peddled by the Oromummaa intellectual colony is a modern reconstruction heavily influenced by diaspora intellectuals, led by Jalata.
3.3. The Myth of Pan-Oromo Irreechaa
Jawar Mohammed frames it as non-sectarian cultural heritage; Megersa frames it as a religious ritual; Asebe Regassa roots it in Waaqeffanna; and Awol Allo frames it as cultural self-affirmation.
The Irreechaa narrative is more contentious within the Oromummaa intellectual colony. Jawar Mohammed sees it as non-sectarian cultural heritage. Awol Allo concurs, describing it as “ cultural self-affirmation.” On the other hand, Gemechu Megersa markets it as a religious practice and berates those who oppose his views as “አቃጣሪ.” Listen to his two segment interview on the LTV Show here and here.
In line with Megersa, Asebe Regassa asserts Irreechaa “has been understood and practiced within the context of the Oromo religion.”, Waaqeffanna – a belief in one supernatural power called Waaqaa (God).”
This contradiction encapsulates the incoherence at the heart of political Oromummaa.
3.4. The Myth of Menilik as the Destroyer of the Gadaa Paradise.
Asmarom Legesse, the academic godfather of romanticized Gada, blamed Menelik of abolishing Gadaa, even though virtually all credible historians agree that the decline of Gadaa occurred between 1650 and 1800 across most Oromo regions, long before Menelik’s expansion.
In his seminal book “The Oromo Ethiopia, 1500-1850,” Mohammed Hassen explained Gadaa’s breakdown as follows: “The Gadaa governance was not able to resolve its internal contradictions, which, for example, led to the gabbaro uprising of 1618, and eventually to the demise of gada governance .… Their sixteenth century capacity to terrorize their enemies was second only to their inexhaustible talent for self-mutilation during the seventeenth and subsequent centuries.”
Endalkachew Lelisa Duressa has a different explanation: “Due to the geographical expansion of the Oromo territory and an increasing population, the central Gadaa government declined beginning in the mid-17th century and autonomous regional and local republics took its place.”
Ironically, this is echoed by Jalata: “The nonfederal nature of the Gadaa System, lack of Strong Central government, lack of regular meeting of Gadaa official and long distance of Gumii (assembly) from political center made Gadaa system less Competent”.
P.T.W. Baxter emphasizes that by the 1800s “Gada was a memory, a vocabulary, and scattered rituals,” not a regional political system.
3.5. Unreconcilable Differences and Unsustainable Tension
Oromo opposition parties are unable to form a united front because the foundational myths leave no room for compromise. The extremist wing treats correction of myth as betrayal. The government treats non-adherence as disloyalty. This has created a civil war within Oromo tribal land.
The leaders who crafted these myths are now imprisoned by them. Jawar’s fear for his life epitomizes this.
Oromo opposition parties are unable to form a united front because there is no room for compromise. The OLA kills Oromo civilians and officials who disagree with its maximalism, while the Oromo-led federal government uses its monopoly of violence to silence those who oppose its perspective. This has created a civil war within Oromo tribal land.
The problem is structural. If they accept Gadaa was never a pan-Oromo democracy, then Oromummaa loses its founding myth. If it submit to a historical fact that Menelik did not destroy Gadda’s romanticized democracy, then Oromummaa’s “colonial” narrative collapses. If they pay heed to widely recorded history that Gadaa expansionist era was violent, and hierarchical, then the contrived Oromo moral binary disappears.
The narrative that once mobilized millions has hardened into a dogmatic cult. In a bitter irony, the leaders of the movement are reduced to prisoners of their own making. Today, many Oromo scholars privately acknowledge the inaccuracies, exaggerations, and outright inventions embedded in their narrative. But they now face an impossible dilemma: to correct the myth is to alienate the base they radicalized. Jawar’s fear for his life epitomizes this.
4. The Anatomy of Transformation from Liberation Theory to a Supremacist Force
Phase 1: The Conceptualization of a Unified Oromo Nation (1963–1991)
In 1963, the Machaa-Tulama Self-Help Association (MTA) laid the groundwork for a unified “Oromo nation.” This was an important development for two reasons. First, it was a marker for the integration of Macha (western Oromia) and Tulama (central Shewa) branches. Second, it shifted the association from a local development endeavor to cultural and political awakening. In 1967, diaspora Oromo joined the movement after MTA was banned by the Ethiopian government.
In 1973, Asmarom Legese published his acclaimed book “Gada: Three Approaches to the Study of African Society,” which romanticized Gadaa as an egalitarian and peaceful indigenous democracy. His book avoided or even justified the system’s expansionist war culture that subjugated and enslaved non-Oromo tribes. He also downplayed the Gadaa culture that used mutilated male gentiles as war trophy. His romanticized account created an intellectual environment in which Gadaa could be reimagined not as a historically varied system but as a universal Oromo civilizational heritage.
In 1974, the Oromo Liberation Front adopted Gadaa as the symbol of Pan-Oromo indigenous democracy, Waaqeffanna as the original monotheistic religion, and the Borana thanksgiving ritual (Irrecha) as a nucleus for a Pan-Oromo national festival. Early OLF publications and radio broadcasts presented these three elements as the authentic core of Oromo identity that was suppressed by the Abyssinian state.
Phase 2: Institutionalization under EPRDF/OPDO (1991–2018)
Oromia Regional State introduced a romanticized Gadaa in its Grades 1–12 curriculum and started promoting Irrecha as a unifying political agenda. It also registered Waaqeffanna associations as legal entities. The first Abbaa Muuda pilgrimage to Mormor (Borana) was revived in 2001.
Irrecha became a fully state-sponsored national event after the Oromia Regional government declared it a regional public holiday. Soon after, new amphitheaters were built in several major cities in the Oromo region. The Oromo regional government’s TV (OBN) and school curricula intensified the message that “every Oromo celebrates Irrecha.” This marked the beginning of turning a localized cultural ritual into the symbol of Oromo identity.
Gradually, the curriculum, media, and administrative machinery transformed selective traditions into the official definition of Oromo-ness. Islam and Christianity—which represent over 95 percent of Oromo religious life—were reframed as secondary to the politically curated “authentic” identity anchored in Waaqeffanna, Gadaa, and Irrecha.
Phase 3: Explosion during the Qeerroo Protests and Abiy’s Early Years (2018–2020)
In The Concept of Oromummaa and Identity Formation in Contemporary Oromo Society, Asafa Jalata states: “As the ideology of the Oromo national movement, Oromummaa enables the Oromo to retrieve their cultural memories.”
Between 1993 and 2008, Jalata produced voluminous work elevating the Oromo national movement (Oromummaa) as an overarching Oromo liberation ideology. His works fused a radical political ideology into Oromo cultural identity through three foundational assertions:
1. “Gadaa as the main institutional emblem of the Oromo national character marks Oromo national culture and identity at all levels.”
2. “Waaqeffanna is at the heart of Oromo tradition and culture, which shapes the basis of Oromummaa.”
3. Christianity and Islam are “empire builders,” their churches and mosques “colonialist institutions,” and therefore must “adapt to national Oromummaa” if they are to remain in the Oromo region.
Jalata’s theology demands what is forbidden in both the Quran and the Bible. Tribal loyalty overriding faith is explicitly condemned in Islam. Christianity rejects tribalism outright—Galatians 3:28 states that believers are one in Christ, superseding all tribal, ethnic, and class distinctions.
Waaqeffanna accounts for only 3.3% of the Oromo population, while Islam and Christianity account for 95%. Yet Jalata elevated Waaqeffanna as the cultural baseline for Oromo identity, placing faith-based identity beneath tribal allegiance. Jawar Mohammed’s “I am an Oromo first before I am Muslim” is the distilled product of this theological inversion.
The Qeerroo movement, energized by these narratives, functioned as the mass mobilization arm. Oromo cultural symbols—Gadaa flags, siiqqee/kallacha emblems, Irrecha attire—became political uniforms and tests of loyalty. This phase marks Oromummaa’s shift from intellectual theory to street-level identity policing.
Political propaganda or psychological indoctrination is not sufficient to dust up Gadaa and Irrecha from the dead. Similarly, bolstering Waaqeffanna with political steroid is not enough to make it a unifying religion. Waaqeffanna cannot survive where there are competing religions. Therefore, maligning and suppressing or destroying other cultures and religions is a critical part of the Oromummaa purification process.
In violation of Article 11 of the constitution, Waaqeffanna became a state religion and churches and mosques get demolished by the Oromo regional government.
Phase 4: De-facto Obligation (2018–2025)
After the ascension of an Oromo prime minister whose political powerbase is primarily in Oromo, Waaqeffanna, Gadaa, and Irreechaa received unprecedented official recognition and state financing.
The ideology Asafa Jalata conceptualized, curated, and preached was now implemented with the full power of the state. Shimeles Abdissa, the President of the Oromo region, declared: “The future of Ethiopia is Gadaa.” To ensure this eventuality, the Oromo government, with support and financing from the Abiy administration, is working on three fronts.
Abdissa made it clear that “Prosperity Party is built in such a way to advance the interest of Oromo. The head of the Party will always be an Oromo or an Oromo plant.” On the Gadaa front, he announced that the government is “spending billions and erecting Oromummaa markers in Addis Ababa.”
On expanding Oromo culture, he declared plans to ensure that in the coming years Irrecha is celebrated from the coasts of the Red Sea to the shores of the Indian Ocean. Civil servants, teachers, and university students in many zones are expected to attend Irrecha or face questions about their “Oromo-ness.” Displaying the Gadaa flag or siiqqee/kallacha symbols has become mandatory at government offices and public events.
New pilgrimage sites are financed and built by the Oromo regional government. Some kebeles pressured citizens to register as Waaqeffata during the 2020–2022 house-to-house census campaign.
• Refusal to participate can lead to social ostracism or, in extreme cases, loss of jobs or services (documented in Shewa and western zones, 2018–2022).
• Orthodox and Protestant clergy who criticize the “return to Waaqeffanna” have been labelled “anti-Oromo” by local officials and youth activists.
What began as selective cultural elevation has matured into an enforced political identity where compliance is monitored through civil-service structures, public rituals, and community pressure. Oromummaa is no longer cultural expression.
5. Rescuing Waaqeffanna, Gadaa, and Irreechaa from Extremist Hijackers
Ethno-nationalist forces of Oromummaa have stained Waaqeffanna, Gadaa, and Irreechaa by turning them into instruments of hate, division, and existential conflict. As a result, Oromos are killing Oromos over ideological purity. Oromo churches and mosques are being demolished in the name of reviving Waaqeffanna as a Pan-Oromo religion.
The choice before the Oromo people today is stark and unavoidable: continue down the path of enforced Oromummaa and watch the social fabric tear beyond repair, or reclaim the best of Oromo heritage—tolerance, dialogue, and the celebration of diversity within unity—and build an Oromia that is confidently Oromo without being violently Oromummaa.
The victims buried in mass graves across Wellega, Shewa, Guji, and the Amaro highlands are waiting for the second choice. History will judge the Oromo not by the myths it recites, but by the moral courage it shows now: silence in the face of atrocity, or an unflinching demand for a change of course.