the africa report

By Michael Masrie

From cost to control, the Ethiopian prime minister has reframed sea access as a security issue, arguing that reliance on external routes leaves his country exposed.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has long argued that Ethiopia needs access to the sea. This week, he returned to that message on state television, but it landed differently. Though the issue wasn’t new, his tone was. What stood out was how much more pointed and loaded his framing has become.

In a follow-up interview with state broadcaster ETV on 15 April, Abiy moved beyond the long-standing argument about transport costs and competitiveness. He reframed Ethiopia’s landlocked condition as a structural vulnerability affecting state security, information control and digital sovereignty.

“To be without a sea outlet is to be without privacy,” he said, using the Amharic concept of gemena (my secret) to describe exposure across information flows, trade routes and decision chains. He extended the argument to digital infrastructure, linking undersea cables, satellite dependence and cross-border data routing to what he described as constrained national confidentiality.

The concern is no longer only economic exposure but limited control over communications and state systems.

The same logic was applied to trade. Imports and exports, Abiy said, become externally visible and therefore vulnerable. “It brings import ‘secret-less-ness’ … export ‘secret-less-ness’,” suggesting that even routine commerce is shaped by external observation and potential disruption.

This is not how Abiy has usually framed the issue. Earlier speeches focused on cost and efficiency. His argument has shifted towards control, exposure and strategic vulnerability.

Not everyone is aligned behind the framing

The assumption of a unified domestic position on maritime access does not fully hold. While there is broad recognition that Ethiopia requires reliable sea access, there is no consensus on how to acquire it and under what terms.

Abiy acknowledged in his remarks that there is popular hesitation. “I am surprised when I hear citizens … who are wavering on this issue,” suggesting that consensus is not as consolidated as the strategic framing implies.

By elevating the issue in a televised setting, the intervention is less about introducing an agenda than consolidating political alignment around a securitised interpretation of maritime access, in which access is presented as non-discretionary.

Surafel Getahun, a Kenya-based political analyst and former lecturer at Dire Dawa University, reads this as part of a broader positioning strategy. “The prime minister’s emphasis on maritime access appears to serve primarily domestic and strategic purposes,” he tells The Africa Report. “It helps rally nationalist sentiment during economic difficulties and pressures neighbouring countries for more favourable terms.”

Surafel adds that the constraint is not rhetorical but structural. “Ethiopia seems to be seeking operational control rather than passive investment,” he says. “That is harder to secure.” In this sense, public messaging functions as part of the bargaining environment rather than separate from it.

A second narrative reopens strategic memory

The timing becomes more consequential alongside remarks by Lieutenant General Tsadkan Gebretensae, former Ethiopian army chief during the 1998-2000 war with Eritrea.

Tsadkan revived a long-standing claim that Ethiopia held a battlefield advantage but failed to convert it into a political outcome. “Our superiority emerged while their weakness grew,” he said in a rare interview with state media televised on 13 April. “We had built the strength to do whatever we wanted.”

He locates the constraint not in military capacity but in political decision-making. “The army is fully prepared and can do anything, but the next decision is a political decision.” Tsadkan also recalled that the discussion of Assab was politically constrained at the time. “This agenda was taboo,” he said.

What matters is not the novelty of the claim, but its reappearance at a moment when executive discourse is expanding the definition of maritime access beyond economics into sovereignty and security. The effect is not convergence of positions, but parallel narrative activation: one from state leadership, the other from military memory.

Laws and diplomacy

Analysts caution against retrospective readings of missed opportunity.

“Tsadkan’s argument may hold from a military standpoint, but it does not stand up legally or diplomatically,” Surafel says. He points to the Algiers Agreement, which required Ethiopia and Eritrea to return to pre-war positions and placed boundary disputes under international arbitration.

“Assab was never recognised as Ethiopian territory under international law,” he says. “Any move to take it would have been treated as conquest rather than recovery.” He adds that mediators signalled in advance that further advances risked sanctions and diplomatic isolation.

Operational constraints were also decisive: extended supply lines across hostile terrain, mined corridors, and an adversary retaining artillery and air capability. The constraint structure was therefore not only political, but legal and operational.

Tilahun Adamu, a former Ethiopian diplomat to Somalia and legal professional based in the US, situates the debate within longer state formation decisions. “At the time of secession, Ethiopia retained significant legal, military and diplomatic leverage that could have been deployed to secure its strategic interests in Assab,” he says. “However, such leverage was not effectively asserted.”

Subsequent recognition of Eritrea narrowed Ethiopia’s strategic space. “Ethiopia did not assert any sustained legal or strategic claim regarding Assab,” Tilahun notes, beyond ad hoc arrangements.

For him, the issue is now less a historical than a strategic design. “Ethiopia possesses the right to reliable access to and from the sea, and should actively pursue it,” he tells The Africa Report. “However, it must articulate a strategy that ensures long-term, stable and peaceful utilisation.”

From historical grievance to strategic positioning

Abiy’s remarks signal a reframing of vulnerability – economic, informational and logistical – as a security condition.

The prime minister pointed to inflationary pressures in transport costs, delays in delivery and reduced competitiveness in global markets. He also linked Ethiopia’s position to wider disruptions in maritime trade routes, where access constraints amplify external shocks.

“If we do not solve this, our industry will not be competitive,” Abiy said.