Post falsely claims video shows Ethiopian ex-army chief speaking about overthrowing PM

The Facebook post has been shared more than 280 times since it was published on October 12, 2024. 

It contains a three-minute clip with text overlays in Amharic that read: “Samora Yunis talking about toppling Abiy.”

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Screenshot of the false post, taken in October 17, 2024

Samora served as the Ethiopian army’s chief of staff from 2001 to 2018 (archived here). 

The clip begins with a journalist asking: “Were there people who proposed a coup d’état?”

Samora replies: “I firmly believe that there should be no fighting after a change of leadership in the government. We should not fight in every case when politicians change and a new leadership comes to power. Let the fighting in Ethiopia stop.”

There is a big jump in the clip before Samora says: “But I have known Abiy for a long time. I knew him as a soldier, I also knew him as a member of INSA [Information Network Security Administration]. After that, I also knew him when he became a member of the OPDO.”

OPDO stands for Oromo People’s Democratic Organization, a ruling party in the Oromia region. In 2019, it was renamed the Oromia Prosperity Party.

The clip jumps for a third time to Samora discussing his relationship with Abiy: “After that, four military officers were sent to South Africa for training. He was one of them. When they returned, they made a joint proposal to me based on what they had learned. The initiative was good. I forwarded the proposal to Meles, who liked it and developed it further. INSA was eventually founded based on the proposal by Abiy and his colleagues. This allowed us to get to know each other and interact.”  

Meles Zenawi was the late Ethiopian prime minister who died on August 20, 2012 (archived here). . 

Samora continues: “Then he left the army with the aim of strengthening the political parties,” adding that “he became a civil servant and joined the OPDO. After that, we didn’t have a close relationship... I met him three or four times along with his colleagues. I had no special relationship with him.” 

The claim that Samora talked about ousting Abiy is false. 

Old video 

AFP Fact Check used the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the video.

The search results included a link to the original video of more than 20 minutes in length published on the official YouTube channel of Awlo Media in June 2020 (archived here). 

AFP Fact Check found the relevant sections of the interview that were used to create the false video.

Sixteen minutes and 30 seconds into the original video, a journalist asks Samora: “You said before there were people who were proposing a coup d’etat before Abiy came to power. Were they doing so in an organised manner or individually?” 

The opening moments of the false clip were taken from this segment. 

A few seconds later in the original video, at the 16'39" mark, Samora responds. “Those who proposed coups did not know our goals,” he says. “I believe that there should be no fighting after a change of leadership. We should not fight in every case when the politicians change and new leadership comes to power. The fighting in Ethiopia should stop.”

This section corresponds to the next segment in the edited clip, from four to 15 seconds.

Finally, from 13’15” to 16’01” in the original interview, Samora says that “I have known Abiy for a long time” and continues to discuss their relationship while they were in the military and the period after, including how both later contributed to the establishment of INSA.

In the falsely-captioned clip, this part can be seen from 16 seconds to the end. 

In neither the original video nor the edited clip does Samora mention “toppling Abiy”.

Command post regime

The command post, headed by the defence minister, ruled Ethiopia when the state of emergency (SoE) was imposed on February 16, 2018 (archived here) following the resignation of former prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn. 

In April 2018, Abiy took over as prime minister (archived here). The Ethiopian parliament lifted the state of emergency on June 4, 2018 and the command post regime ended consequently (archived here). 

Samora refers to this period of transitional rule when he talks about “people proposing coups”.