This article about the Ethiopian town. For the reggaeton musician, see Ñejo (musician).

Nejo (also transliterated Nego) is a town in western Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

. Located in the Mirab Welega Zone

Mirab Welega Zone

Mirab Welega is one of the 12 Zones in the Ethiopian Region of Oromia. This zone is named after the former province of Welega, whose western part lay in the area Mirab Misraq now occupies....

 of the Oromia Region

Oromia Region

Oromia is one of the nine ethnic divisions of Ethiopia...

, this town has a latitude and longitude of 9°30′N 35°30′E with an elevation of 1821 meters above sea level. It is the administrative center of Nejo

Nejo (woreda)

Nejo is one of the 180 woredas in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia. Part of the Mirab Welega Zone, Nejo is bordered on the southeast by Boji, on the west by Jarso, on the northwest by Mana Sibu, and on the north and east by the Benishangul-Gumuz Region...

 woreda

Woreda

Woreda is an administrative division of Ethiopia , equivalent to a district . Woredas are composed of a number of Kebele, or neighborhood associations, which are the smallest unit of local government in Ethiopia...

. Nejo is served by an airport (ICAO code HANJ, IATA NEJ).

In his travel book, In Search of King Solomon's Mines

In Search of King Solomon's Mines

In Search of King Solomon's Mines is a travel book by Anglo-Afghan author, Tahir Shah.It began with a map in Jerusalem. The map showed a trail leading to the fabled mines of King Solomon, who built the first temple of Israel out of gold, mined from the land of Ophir...

, Tahir Shah

Tahir Shah

Tahir Shah , né Sayyid Tahir al-Hashimi is an Anglo-Afghan Indian author, journalist and documentary maker. He lives in Casablanca, Morocco.-Family origins and life:...

 described Nejo in the late 20th century as a town with "a muddy main street", lined with "buildings with corrugated iron roofs and cement walls". He stops in a bar where "kerosene

Kerosene

Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...

 and sawdust had been sprinkled on the floor to keep away the flies."

History

Near Nejo at the hill of Guté Dili

Battle of Guté Dili

The Battle of Guté Dili was fought on 14 October 1888 between an alliance of the Shewan forces of Ras Gobana Dacche and the Oromo ruler of Leqa Naqamte, Moroda Bekere, and Mahdist forces under governor Khalil al-Khuzani near Nejo in the modern Mirab Welega Zone of the Oromia Region...

, on 14 October 1888 the joint forces of Ras Gobana Dacche and Moroda Bekere defeated the invading army of Khalil al-Khuzani, an officer of the Abdallahi ibn Muhammad

Abdallahi ibn Muhammad

Abdullah Ibn-Mohammed or Abdullah al-Taaisha, also known as "The Khalifa" was a Sudanese Ansar General and ruler.-Early years:Abdullah was born into the Ta'aisha Baqqara tribe in Darfur around 1846 and was trained and educated as a preacher and holy man.He became a follower of Mohammed Ahmed "the...

 who had invaded Wellega. At the time, Nejo was a trading center of the Sibu Oromo. Dejazmach Gebre Egziabher moved his residence from Nekemte

Nekemte

Nekemte is a market town in western Ethiopia. Located in the Misraq Welega Zone of the Oromia Region , Nekemte has a latitude and longitude of and an elevation of 2,088 meters....

 to Nejo, where around 1893 he built the church of Kidane Mihret, the second Ethiopian Orthodox church in Sibo province; priests for the church were recruited from Shewa

Shewa

Shewa is a historical region of Ethiopia, formerly an autonomous kingdom within the Ethiopian Empire...

.

In 1904 Onesimos Nesib

Onesimos Nesib

Onesimos Nesib , was a native Oromo who converted to Lutheran Christianity and translated the Christian Bible into the Oromo language...

 arrived at Nejo to establish a mission, together with his wife, his children, and a group of associates including Aster Ganno

Aster Ganno

Aster Ganno was an Ethiopian Bible translator who worked with the better known Onesimos Nesib as a translator of the Oromo Bible, published in 1899.She was born free, but was later enslaved by the king of Limmu-Ennarea...

. He had originally gone to Nekemte, but learning that Dejazmach Gebre Egziabher had relocated to Nejo followed him there. The Dejazmach invited Onesimos to settle next to his gebbi, gave him a large piece of tax-free land, and built him a house and a school. By September of that year, Onesimus had 20 students in his school. In November 1905 Dejazmach Gebre Egziabher moved his residence back to Nekemte, and he took Onesimus along. The school had as many as 68 students, but closed when Onesimos and Aster left. About this time, Nejo had become a significant market center for gold from the nearby Abay and Dabus

Dabus River

The Dabus River is a north-flowing tributary of the Abay River in southwestern Ethiopia; it joins its parent stream at . The Dabus has a drainage area of about 21,032 square kilometers....

 rivers. "The stock-in-trade is a small neatly worked basket," wrote Herbert Weld Blundell

Herbert Weld Blundell

Herbert Joseph Weld Blundell was an English traveller in Africa, archaeologist, philanthropist and yachtsman. He shortened his surname from Weld Blundell to Weld, in 1924.-Life to 1922 :...

 who visited the area in 1905, "containing pebbles ground to equal the weights required for weighing out the gold, a small copper balance, and finally, the gold-dust in quills The amount of gold exported from Nejjo has been put by engineers living there at about £80,000 a year, and the tribute of the king is about one-half of this."

The Evangelical mission was revived in 1927, when Pastor Martin Nordfeldt and his family arrived from Nekemte in July of that year. During their stay, the Nordfeldts wrote an Oromo

Oromo language

Oromo, also known as Afaan Oromo, Oromiffa, Afan Boran, Afan Orma, and sometimes in other languages by variant spellings of these names , is an Afro-Asiatic language, and the most widely spoken of the Cushitic family. Forms of Oromo are spoken as a first language by more than 25 million Oromo and...

 grammar which was printed in the Swedish journal Le monde oriental. Nejo became something of a mining center in 1929, when important occurrences of gold were found in the area.

Although the Evangelical church had survived the Italian occupation

Italian East Africa

Italian East Africa was an Italian colonial administrative subdivision established in 1936, resulting from the merger of the Ethiopian Empire with the old colonies of Italian Somaliland and Italian Eritrea. In August 1940, British Somaliland was conquered and annexed to Italian East Africa...

, despite being converted to a Roman Catholic church, after their expulsion Fitawrari Danye and his soldiers allegedly vandalized the building, stealing everything of value, knocking the altar to pieces, and used the church building as a stable. The other mission buildings were likewise pillaged. Despite this, by the late 1940s the mission was once again in operation.

A 26-year old farmer, Henok Jonatan, was arrested by government forces in Nejo on 16 March 1995, suspected of being active for the Oromo Liberation Front

Oromo Liberation Front

The Oromo Liberation Front , or OLF, is an organization established in 1973 by Oromo nationalists to promote self-determination for the Oromo people against what they call "Abyssinian colonial rule". It has been outlawed and labeled as a terrorist organization by the Ethiopian government...

. He is believed to have been tortured, along with nine other Oromo prisoners. Their bodies were discovered 28 April at Mucha Fugiso.

Demographics

Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency

Central Statistical Agency (Ethiopia)

The Central Statistical Agency is an agency of the government of Ethiopia designated to provide all surveys and censuses for that country used to monitor economic and social growth, as well as to act as an official training center in that field. It is part of the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and...

in 2005, Nejo has an estimated total population of 19,887, of whom 9,811 are men and 10,076 women. The 1994 census reported this town had a total population of 11,125 of whom 5,321 were men and 5,804 were women.