While not rejecting Abiy Ahmed’s reform measures, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Sidama demand for a quick referendum to determine statehood status for their ethnic community, one of the largest language speaking groups in Ethiopia’s Southern People’s Nations and Nationalities state. Ethnic Sidama are currently within “Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Regional State,” one of the nine ethnic based Federal regional states. Ethnic Sidama are said to be well over 3.2 million in 2017, according to information published on Wikipedia. Ethic Sidama’s demand for ethnic based statehood has triggered similar demands from other ethnic groups in the region. However, unlike Sidama, the demands of the rest of the ethnic groups for the status of statehood are not given clear cut response.

Source: Ethiopian News February 22, 2019 02:48 UTC