Mister President
By Tearz Ayuen, Nairobi, Kenya.
In reality, you have not achieved anything “yet”. Or in a more friendly language, though you have not failed, you have not achieved anything since you assumed presidency in 2005.
Many writers, when addressing you in a letter, always start it off by pointing out a few good things about you and suddenly switch, explaining what they’re writing to you for. Those are the ones who always want to prove that they’re professionals or something. Others even stray from their professional territories and say imaginary good things about you; things you really do not deserve compliments for. Such group is mainly composed of beggars, flatterers. My peers call them sycophants, generally.
Well, I am different. It’s not that I am mean nor do I hold any grudge against you but because I find nothing to praise you for for now. And I mean it; you have done nothing to show the world.
You must be saying this to yourself now: “What’s this boy talking about? Is he drunk or mentally deranged? Someone please take him to a mental hospital. What about the successful referendum? The joyful independence, the first class citizenship right I gave South Sudanese? The government system I put in place and the tranquility in the country and etcetera?”
Mister President, don’t dare think about any of the above CPA dividends which happen to be mistakenly enjoyed by the chosen few. You never achieved any of them as an individual; each and every citizen contributed this or that, including blood, limbs, eyes, sweat and tears. If there is anyone out there saying that you brought about the aforementioned benefits, he or she is lying to you with intent to make you a laughing stock of the African heads of states. In other words, he is giving you enough rope to hang your personality – just to make you build castles in the air and resultantly sit back and relax when you should actually be toiling harder to earn yourself a page or two in the history book of South Sudan which is currently writing itself.
You achieved nothing to be remembered about! Elaborately, South Sudan’s independence that came into existence through the 2011 referendum was handed to you on a golden plate. You never struggled for it. It was outlined in the CPA long time ago. And with South Sudanese yearning for religious, political, economic and social freedoms, they voted unity out. That means by hook and crook, the baby country was meant to be, irrespective of who the president was. Yes, even if Late George Athor or David Yau Yau, or a boda boda or Ajah Atong Ajok was the president, South Sudan would still have attained independence!!!
Under your leadership, the citizens are still suffering a number of insecurities of which you indirectly have a hand in. The masses are getting poorer daily. Hunger and diseases are robbing the country of its populations. The common man does not need chips, pizza or samosa. He needs asida and beans to keep his bones strong in order to continue to cater for his family. Nothing else. But your reign never allows that. Efforts to eradicate starvation are negated by your juniors who deliberately break the law, knowing that you do not, you will not, shall not and will never bother to do anything about it. In 2008, the US government gave you a grant of billions of dollars for feeding your hungry eight million civilians. I understand that you were to spend that money on grains that you would in turn sell to the citizens at a cheaper price. What happened? – Like vultures feeding on a carcass, your boys divided up the grants amongst themselves, placing your reputation at stake. It took you a very long time to ask what happened to the money. Now you’re crying; and with both hands in pockets, they are whistling, singing victory songs.
Wise men always speak the truth: reap what you sow, they say. You did employ those who weigh zero point zero zero zero something on the leadership scale and you are now reaping. You must have ignored the important good leadership qualities like integrity, excellence, magnanimity, humility and so on, and based your judgments on what one did during the war in the bush. You handed public offices to incompetent, tribal, ambitionless, emotionally insecure and annoyingly arrogant individuals who do not care about the meaning of a liberation movement. Now, you know what it’s like to scatter grains on a rocky and thorny ground. The bush comrades you trusted so much have turned against you. They messed up your government; stashed public money in foreign banks, employed their nieces, nephews and concubines. Armed with political immaturity, some of them caused and/or fueled ethnic animosities and suspicions across the country.
Your softness is killing voters. Inability to instill the rule of law in your stewards is a cancerous disease that has eaten off your judicial arm. And that is if you ever had such an arm. First of all, who is South Sudan’s attorney general? Where is his/her office located? What experiences does he have? Has he ever addressed the public? When was the last time he appeared in the news?
Mister President, it takes your court less than a week to finalize a multi-million dollar graft case against your junior official, while a common thief, say chicken thief, serves a five-year pre-trial detention before a judge disinterestedly looks into his file. Are you aware of the implications that have on your tenure?
Your security organs have taken the law into their hands. They freely practice arbitrary arrests and unlawful detentions. That happens because your authority is weak. You never ensure that those who abuse power are punished severely. One good example is that of the former finance minister Arthur Akuein who allegedly stole millions. He got detained but his relatives militarily removed him from the police cell. Why didn’t you do anything? You couldn’t re-arrest him? You couldn’t order the army to do it? And do you now see the outcome of the message your laxity conveyed to government officials?
A young vigorous and productive citizen with a feminine tribal name, who had just graduated from a Ugandan university, was killed in what many call a fishy tragic road accident in Juba not very long ago. How did the case go? – Nobody knows.
The national army of which you’re its head is so stubborn. The soldiers do not give a damn about the law. They intimidate, harass and attack civilians at will. The country just lost a very important patriot to them. He was an industrious Lost Boy who personally wanted to contribute to the elevation of South Sudan from its current state of illiteracy. He was sponsoring three university students and seven secondary school students until SPLA soldiers took away his life while he was on a visit in his village last week. By the way, fathers of the students in question died during the struggle for liberation. Isn’t that a loss to you?
Doctor Jok Madut Jok, a well-known South Sudanese scholar and a senior official in your government got manhandled by security boys at Wau airstrip shortly before you arrived in the area in December last year. They beat him like a snake. Can you imagine the pain and humiliations he suffered?
Mister President, you unarguably have no hand in those cases but your name appears because you rarely have wrongdoers punished.
I quoted the adverb yet in the first line above in a bid to give you hope that you still do have high chances of redeeming yourself. One chance could be the Abyei issue that seems to be dragging. Abyei belongs in South Sudan. The Ngok are a Dinka people. Why is it taking forever to bring the issue to an end? Look, giving government seats to Arop Kuol Deng, Deng Alor Kuol, Luka Biong Deng, Chol Deng Alaak and many other Abyei intellectuals is not the solution to Abyei issue, because they are not the Abyei. Abyei is the dying child in the Abyei area whose helpless mother cannot do anything about. Abyei is the hungry elderly person with protruding ribs, waiting to die. Their lives lie in your hands.
Your other chance could be the 4 billion dollar scandal. I don’t see any reason why you hesitate to teach them a lesson especially after they did this immeasurable damage to the country and its people. This is the payback time for those who tainted your reputation. It doesn’t matter who they are; cousins or in-laws or long time comrades, just roll up your sleeves, remove your cowboy hat and fight them till the end. Even if execution by a firing squad was the only better choice you got, please do it for the sake of the country.
I repeat: you have not achieved a thing since 2005. Unless you tackle the two cases, you will be remembered for one thing only; your cowboy hat.
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