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Ethiopians Mock National TV's ‘Lies’ for April Fools’ Day

Categories: Sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia, Citizen Media, Humor, Media & Journalism, Politics

Ethiopians marked April Fools’ Day [1] on Twitter with a steady stream of fake news headlines that imitated the “lies” of state-owned Ethiopian Television (ETv), the only national TV station in the African country. Using the hashtag #ETvDay [2], netizens accused ETv of “telling lies 365 days”.

It all started with the image below:

Jomanex [5] noted in Amharic:

Customizing: April Fools’ is for foreigners. “Ours” is ETv.

Soli [10] joked about the next general election in 2015:

The disputed 2005 Ethiopian election ended in street protests [14], with 193 people killed and more that 30,000 people detained by security forces. In 2010, the election [15] ended in a landslide victory for the incumbent Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, taking 99.6 percent of parliamentary seats. The opposition rejected the results and international observers said the election fell short of international standards.

Apparently, Ethiopia will meet one of its Millennium Development Goals [16] – a set of development goals agreed upon at the United Nations’ Millennium Summit in 2000 – in record time:

Sources revealed that Ethiopia will provide a supply of clean water before the Millennium Development Goals deadline

Gulelle sub-city residents who couldn't get drinking water for the past 20 days said they were not affected because they had been given training on how to live without water.

On the Crimea referendum, in which that region of Ukraine overwhelmingly voted to be annexed by Russia:

Some residents of Adama [a city in central Ethiopia] said that Russia’s annexation of Crimea won’t affect the Growth and Transformation plan of Ethiopia.

Mahlet [22] categorized news into two types:

BefeQadu added [24]:

There are two types of people in the world: those who watch ETv daily and those who were saved by God from having to watch it.

Using the Ethiopian Tourism Commission’s former motto, ‘13 months of sunshine’, Saleh [26] said:

How many days does ETv own a year?:

Oromo Network's [32] wished:

Enjoy the rest of the #ETvDay tweets here [35].