After the December 1960 coup attempt led by the brothers Germame and Menigistu Neway against Emperor Haile Selassie's government, around a dozen aspiring intellectuals in their early 20s rented a house in Piassa, close to the famous 70 Dereja.The study group was called “Study on Marxism/Leninism,” and there they discussed subject matter pertaining to socialism. Newaykiristos (Neway) Gebreab, who three decades later would serve as one of the minds behind Ethiopia’s state-led economic miracle, was a member of this group.

“He wasn't one to advocate that Marxism-Leninism was the best fit for Ethiopia,” says Zafu Eyesuswork, one of the well-known personalities in the financial industry for the past two decades, who was also a member of the group with Neway.

The central question the group concerned itself with was who would replace the Emperor. The coup attempt was a stark reminder that there were burgeoning forces within the state bold enough to challenge the establishment. The foundations were, in hindsight, being laid for the student protests of the 1960s and 1970s. The Emperor was also getting old - 68 at the time of the coup. It was not too early to consider what may come next.

Neway and Zafu, who had met as third-year undergraduates at the University College of Addis Abeba when both were offered a one-year student leadership scholarship in the United States, came to the conclusion, along with their budding intellectuals in crime, that under the sociopolitical and economic context of the time, only an organised force could take control at a time when the Emperor would no longer be around.

In an unprecedented display of foresight, the group concluded that the only organised force capable of taking over was the army. Sociopolitical and economic progress thus depended on “enlightening” the army, they concluded.

Fate would have it that the group would eventually disband and each would go their separate ways, including Neway and Zafu. Both would graduate in July 1962, with Neway earning a degree in economics from what was by then being referred to as Haile Selassie University, where he had also served as secretary-general of the University’s student union.

“He was very reserved and a great listener,” reminisces Zafu, who was also roommates with Neway circa 1975, when both lived in exile.

They met up in Khartoum, where Zafu escaped to after the Derguecame to power. Neway came to visit an uncle of his who was living in the Sudanese capital. They stayed in a one-bedroom house, sleeping on floors for about two months before they would part ways once more. In the end, they both settled in Ethiopia, coming back to the country after the fall of the Dergue.

“The last time I saw him, it was at Juventus [restaurant and bar located close to Mesqel Square] about a month ago,” says Zafu. “It was very shocking to learn of his death all of a sudden.”

Neway passed away at the age of 78 last Monday at the Nordic Medical Centre after contracting pneumonia.

Neway, after graduation, worked for four years at the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) as a loan officer before heading to the United Kingdom to do his postgraduate degree at the University of Manchester. He also studied economics at Oxford University. Until he returned to Ethiopia in 1991, he worked at various organs of the United Nations, including UNCTAD, the trade and development wing; UNESCO, the education and culture wing; and FAO, the nutrition and food security wing.

But his legacy was built once he returned to Ethiopia to serve as the first chief economic advisor to the President during the transition and then the Prime Minister. Both offices were occupied by the late Meles Zenawi consecutively. Until his retirement in 2017, Neway served at different times as chairperson of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), director of the Ethiopian Development Research Institute and member of a steering committee and chairman of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NePAD).