Little more than a year later, one of the worst wars of the 21st century erupted in Tigray, Ethiopia's northernmost region.

For much of the preceding three decades, Tigray's authoritarian ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), had held pre-eminent power in a national coalition government.

Abiy, too, had been part of the coalition – but over time had grown resentful of his Tigrayan superiors (the Tigrayan ethnic group comprises just 6% of the population of Ethiopia).

The war, which ended in late 2022, would be fought over conflicting ideas of Ethiopia but also over the raw matter of power.

Abiy was not solely responsible for this catastrophic conflict – which some have described as a genocide – but he was arguably more to blame than anybody else.

He may go down as the most controversial recipient of the Nobel peace prize since Henry Kissinger.

Yet Abiy is no conventional authoritarian demagogue either.

He came to power with a certain vision of the country he wanted to see, though that isn't to say he had a clear policy programme or a rigid ideological agenda for achieving it.

He could be deceptive and dishonest, allowing different constituencies to believe whatever they wanted about him, however contradictory.

He conflated his own fate with that of the nation, believing himself to be indispensable.