The Wi-Fi Prophet of Addis Ababa

If you ever lose internet in Addis, you pray. You restart the router, switch SIM cards, whisper a small “please, Ya Egziabher” — and when that fails, you blame Ethio Telecom. But one man believed there was a spiritual reason behind slow connections. His name? Mebratu Teklu, self-proclaimed Wi-Fi Prophet of Addis Ababa.

It started one Sunday morning in Piassa. The neighborhood café, “Selam Bunna,” had been offline for three days. Customers were complaining that they couldn’t upload selfies or check football scores. The owner, Wubit, was losing business. She tried everything — restarted the router, bought more data, even changed passwords — nothing worked. That’s when Mebratu appeared, holding a small bottle of holy water and an Android phone cracked like a spiderweb.

“Maybe your connection is cursed,” he said with the confidence of a man who once fixed a TV by slapping it.

Wubit laughed. “Cursed? It’s just bad service.”

Mebratu leaned closer. “No, no, sister. Evil data spirits. They live in old routers. I can cleanse it for only 200 birr.”

Wubit, exhausted and desperate, agreed. Mebratu dipped his finger in the holy water and sprinkled the router. “Be connected and stay connected,” he chanted like a priest of Ethernet. Then, as fate — or maybe pure coincidence — would have it, the café Wi-Fi came back on. One customer shouted, “It’s working!” Another uploaded a selfie. And just like that, the legend was born.

Within a week, half the city was talking about The Wi-Fi Prophet. Students lined up with laptops. Taxi drivers asked him to bless their GPS. Even one government office quietly invited him after their computers stopped printing.

He wore sunglasses, carried his holy water in a rebranded Coke bottle, and charged “by signal strength.”

One bar: 100 birr.

Two bars: 150 birr.

Full connection? 300 birr — and a free prayer for your phone battery.

Soon, Mebratu became a local celebrity. He started livestreaming his blessings on TikTok under the name “@HolyHotspot”. His videos went viral — literally and spiritually. In one clip, he stood in front of a rusty modem shouting, “Satan of buffering, leave this router alone!” In another, he exorcised a TV remote that “kept changing channels by itself.”

But fame has a way of attracting enemies.

Enter Brook, an actual IT technician who ran a small computer repair shop two blocks away. He’d been fixing real routers for years — with no miracles, no prayers, just screwdrivers and frustration. When people started skipping his shop for “the prophet,” he nearly lost his mind.

One afternoon, Brook stormed into Selam Bunna, waving a screwdriver like a weapon. “This man is a fraud! There’s no such thing as Wi-Fi demons!” he shouted.

Mebratu smiled calmly, sipping macchiato. “Ah, my brother. You believe in electricity, yes? You can’t see it, but you feel it. So why not invisible data spirits?”

Brook pointed at the router. “Because you unplugged it last time! That’s why it reset!”

The café crowd gasped. Mebratu raised his hand dramatically. “Brother Brook, be not jealous. You repair wires — I repair faith.”

The argument went viral that same night. Someone uploaded it to TikTok with the caption: “Tech vs. Faith — Addis Showdown!” Both men gained followers, but the Prophet’s charm was unbeatable. People preferred his humor over Brook’s logic. After all, in a city where power cuts were normal, miracles were easier to believe than maintenance.

The turning point came when Selamawit, a popular influencer, called him for help. Her followers had been complaining that her livestreams were lagging. Mebratu arrived with holy water, incense, and his favorite line: “Let me cleanse your bandwidth.”

He performed his full ritual — sprinkled water on her ring light, waved incense over her phone, and whispered, “By the power of Saint Teklehaimanot, let this signal never drop.”

Seconds later, the connection improved. The livestream flowed smoothly. Her thousands of followers went wild. “The Prophet did it again!” they typed. She paid him double and called him “Ethiopia’s Digital Saint.”

By the next morning, he had customers as far as Hawassa and Bahir Dar begging for virtual blessings. He launched Wi-Fi Prophecy Online, where people could send money and receive “remote connection healing” through video call. He even started using Zoom — ironically, the only time his signal ever froze.

But not everyone found it funny. The Ministry of Innovation and Technology summoned him for questioning. Rumor said they were divided — half of them laughed, the other half wanted him arrested.

When he arrived, Mebratu wore a white shawl and carried a router like a holy relic. The Minister, a stern man in a suit, asked, “Are you aware you’re misleading citizens?”

Mebratu smiled. “Sir, I’m only providing spiritual tech support.”

The Minister frowned. “You’re charging people for fake miracles.”

“Fake? Tell that to the people streaming clearly after my blessings,” Mebratu replied, pointing to the Minister’s phone. “By the way, your signal’s weak. Maybe your office needs cleansing?”

Even the guards couldn’t hold their laughter. The Minister sighed. “You are banned from practicing… whatever this is.”

But by then, it was too late. The Wi-Fi Prophet had already become a meme, a folk hero, a symbol of every Ethiopian who’d ever shouted “Ahhh, no signal again!” His followers began posting prayers like:

> “Saint Mebratu, bless our data bundles.”

“Give us full bars and forgive our expired megabytes.”

Weeks later, the hype faded — as all trends do. People went back to blaming Ethio Telecom, and Mebratu returned to small blessings for cafés and schools. But every now and then, when someone’s Wi-Fi miraculously reconnected, neighbors would whisper, “Maybe the Prophet passed by.”

One night, sitting at Selam Bunna, Wubit asked, “Do you ever feel bad for tricking people?”

Mebratu chuckled. “Trick? I gave them hope. Hope connects faster than 4G.”

He raised his macchiato, smiled at the flickering “No Internet” sign on his phone, and muttered,

“Maybe I need to bless myself next.”