Born and raised in Gudeya Bila woreda, East Welega Zone, Lemma was a largely unknown quantity prior to 2015. Still a relative newcomer to the national politics, Lemma rose through the ranks of OPDO. He’s served in various capacities in the regional administration since the 1990s. It seems as though every role he’s taken prior to his ascent to the regional presidency was carefully selected in preparation for this moment.

He spent most of his formative years within the Oromia state’s security sector. Insiders say, his acute understanding of the country’s politics and the inner workings of its security apparatus is what prepared him for the current role. Among other high profile positions, he has served as Oromia police commissioner, head of the Oromia Administration and Security Bureau, as well as Head of Trade and Market Development Bureau.

Lemma earned his first degree in Political Science and International Relations from Addis Ababa University; and his second degree in International Relations from the same institution.

Like him or loathe him, when Lemma speaks everyone in Ethiopia and its vast diaspora listens. If OPDO becomes the people’s party in 2018 and beyond, it owes much to Lemma’s powerful oratory, charismatic leadership, and a genuine concern about the Oromo condition.

For 27 years, OPDO served its founder, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), also a member of the EPRDF coalition, with enviable loyalty.

Under Lemma, there are signs that the era of blind loyalty is coming to an end: He came on the scene and boldly proclaimed, “I took the oath of office to serve my people not shadowy elements hiding behind the cover of strict adherence to party dogma.” This will be tested of course and Lemma has much to prove to the Oromo — or walk the talk so to speak. He has a near universal goodwill and unprecedented support of the Oromo masses.

He exhibits the qualities of great leaders. He inspires confidence in his colleagues and elevates everyone around him, according to OPDO officials. He is greeted with flowers, cheers, and ululations wherever he goes. Elders offer him unsolicited prayers and blessings at public gatherings. He has won over many skeptics by taking on robber barons, entrenched contrabandists, corrupt politicians, and crony businesses.

On Dec. 11, when federal military forces killed 16 innocent civilians in Chelenqo town, Lemma called out the central government for deploying the national army and police without Oromia’s request per the country’s constitution, which forbids such deployment without a formal request by the state. He vowed to hold perpetrators to account. It was not an empty threat. Earlier in the year, perhaps for the first time since EPRDF came to power, members of the armed services were brought to justice in Oromia for wanton killings of peaceful protesters in Shashamane, Awaday, and other towns.

His politics of inclusion and a recent public forum in the Amhara state has endeared him even to urban elites who spent two decades campaigning against the federalist system and battling Oromo nationalists on group vs. individual rights.

Lemma doesn’t sugarcoat his speeches with party speak. Instead, he speaks with a measured tone—often without any visible notes or transcripts—at once validating his constituents’ fears and concerns and offering visions for future that are anchored on Oromo culture and values. His speeches encapsulate both the suffering and the hope with which the Oromo people lived for generations. But his is no victimhood politics. He challenges the youth to look inward and overcome nihilism, disunity and believe in their ability to change the course of history.

“Aren’t honey bees a type of insect?” he said in a well-received speech last February. “But what is it that they are most admired for? Their unity. The organized swarm (colony) has a leader. They follow that leader and make sweet honey. In unity, there is a strength. Without the colony, scattered honey bees are just like any other fly. And anyone can squash a fly.”

Lemma is far from perfect. No one leader is. But he offers a prototype of what an Oromo leadership in Ethiopia can be. His bold claim that Oromos hold the stump key to build a better Ethiopia —a truly multinational federation that is at peace with itself—is at the heart of the age-old Oromo question.

“Oromos will determine the fate and future of this country, Ethiopia itself,” Lemma said in the February speech. “Let alone development, Ethiopia cannot continue to exist as a country without Oromos full participation and without affording the Oromo people their fair share.”

The story of Lemma and OPDO’s long-awaited transformation into an Oromo party is still being written. That is precisely why he is our runner up. Team Lemma, as the new cabinet is known among the Oromo, faces a herculean task to reform OPDO and take on the deep state, entrenched Tigrayan interests and corrupt EPRDF officials. In 2018, their collective resolve, individual characters, integrity, faith in self and each other, as well as confidence in their ability and leadership in uniting the Oromo behind their agenda, will be tested.

The first sign of trouble and a coming turbulence emerged Saturday out of the three weeks long EPRDF Executive Committee meeting. The lengthy statement was in essence a rebuke of Lemma and his reform agenda, as well as his overtures to the new OPDO’s counterparts in the Amhara state.

It is the more shocking that, according to interviews with three federal officials who asked not to be named, team Lemma’s temporary setback came courtesy of an astonishing flip flop rather a stunning u-turn by Abbadula Gamada, one of the founders of OPDO, who in last month made an abrupt announcement leaving his post as the Speaker of the House. It is not immediately clear how and why Abbadula’s former comrades in arms prevailed on him. Some point to coordinated blackmail and corruption allegations. In the end, among other turncoats, Abbadula reportedly sided with Diriba Kuma, Kuma Demeksa, and Girma Biru to hand TPLF a much-needed victory.

Lemma and co were given directives to undertake a deep internal self-correction. Should they fail to get in line with the revolutionary democrats, our sources say, TPLF plans to replace them with Abbadula’s team at the next Congress, which has been postponed again to May or August  2018. With the Oromo public firmly behind them, if they manage to stick together, team Lemma will prevail in the end. He has assembled a youthful cabinet, close in age and aspirations to the Qubee generation, and they have empowered the region’s bureaucracy in ways heretofore not seen. Lemma sets the tone for the team and local and district officials can be heard quoting or referencing his speeches.

The core team includes Abiy Ahmed, Umar Hussein, Addisu Arega, Takale Uma, Shimelis Abdisa, Adanech Abebe. Abiy is Lemma’s deputy and the head of OPDO secretariat. No less articulate, Abiy is said to be the architect behind some of the changes sweeping Oromia. One of the earliest changes by team Lemma was to liberate and rebrand the regional broadcaster from the clutches of developmental journalism. The one-time reviled government agitprop has since amassed significant viewership and continues to expose the corruption and excesses of predatory central leaders. OPDO insiders say Abiy was instrumental in the state broadcaster’s significant turnabout.

Team Lemma also quickly embraced social media, particularly Facebook, as an open and accessible medium to directly engage with their constituents. Addisu Arega Kitessa, the genial spokesman for Oromia state, has amassed tens of thousands of followers in a short period of time and is now regularly quoted in local and international press.

In our person of the year profile a year ago, we wrote: “It will only be a matter of time until rank and file Oromo bureaucrats, the Oromia police, merchants and Oromo members of the armed forces join the budding revolution—for they too belong to the gallant Qubee Generation.” We are no prophets but this has already come to pass.

We also said that “Ethiopia’s history suggests that [when the budding revolution reaches Oromos from all walks of life]…it would herald the end of EPRDF and yet another bloody transition in a country that has never seen a single peaceful transfer of power.”

Lemma’s OPDO, together with ANDM, is well positioned to avert the latter eventuality. Will they live up to the outsized public expectations and deliver on the lofty promises they made over the past 12 months? Will TPLF’s military-intelligence industrial complex avoid a suicidal mission and scede the mantle of leadership to the OPDO?

By all measures, Lemma was the most consequential story of 2017. He inspired hope. He demonstrated possibilities. He expanded envelopes. He showed what could be. But at the end, he ran into the fundamentals of power. He ran into the walls of an entrenched status quo whose only agenda is self-reproduction and self-perpetuation at all costs. TPLF is in power not for its great ideas. Not for popular support. But due to its massive advantage in the military and security forces.

Lemma has a choice to make. He could go down in history as the guy who fired up wild hopes of liberty and chose submission when the alternatives are either to submit or fight. Or he could choose to fight. If he fights and loses, he will join the giants of history held up in the various prisons. And the people will continue its fight to free him and itself.

Godspeed.