Zecharias Fassil 9. Conclusion Ethiopia has adopted a federal form of governance and under Article 51(17) of the Constitution the federal government has the power to determine matters related to nationality. As has been succinctly put by the International Crisis Group, the government in power has centralised the state into a Federal Democratic Republic and also redefined citizenship, politics and identity on ethnic grounds.73 This has had many different effects on citizenship protection as enshrined under Article 14(1) of the nationality proclamation. The re-definition of citizenship has impacted the feelings and identity of many Ethiopians. In the strictest sense of the term, citizenship does not fully live up to experience. Even though the FDRE constitution has given the federal government the power to enact laws on citizenship, in practice the regional governments are the ones which can define citizenship rights. Basic social services require the presentation of IDs, and there are rules based on the ethnic federalism which only directly channel particular benefits to locals who are born in the locality and speak its specified language. The lack of a centralised ID registration system and the high reluctance of local governments in some cases to issue an Ethiopian ID might cause a prudent passport case worker to consider the possibility of not serving a non-Ethiopian. For the service user, a kebele ID and birth certificate are the conclusive evidence of nationality to obtain a passport. In sum, in present-day Ethiopia’s political arrangements regional identity and citizenship are often in conflict rather than complimenting each other as the country is now in unionist and federalist tension. There are now attempts to establish a national ID system.74 The Kebele IDs are paperbased documentation references which in most cases cannot be traced due to filling problems and old archives. At a time when an election is approaching, accessing a kebele ID will be troublesome and people can have more than one kebele ID. Therefore, the Ethiopian government needs to revamp the ID registration and renewal system. After the case of the Jawar Mohammed incident, there is a keen interest among the legal community and stakeholders alike to stay abreast of nationality law in Ethiopia. This signals that a legal training and continuing education programme for legal professionals needs to incorporate citizenship law in its curriculum. To help with this endeavour, a compilation and analysis of case law is the way to go. 73 International Crisis Group, Ethiopia: Ethnic Federalism and Its Discontents, published 4 September 2019 at https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/horn-africa/ethiopia/ethiopia-ethnic-federalism-and-its-discontents, last visited on 18 December 2019. 74 Addis Ababa is said to have begun issuing digital identification cards last year. See https://ethio.news/2019/02/23/addis-to-start-issue-digital-identification-card-next-week/ published on 23 February 2019, last accessed on 16 March 2020; APA NEWS, France to provide €40m for Ethiopia's digital ID project, published on 26 July 2019 at http://apanews.net/en/news/france-to-provide-40m-for-ethiopias-digital-idproject/, last accessed on 16 March 2020. 24 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/9- © 2020 Author(s)