“But seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you” Mr. President
5 min readBy Tearz Ayuen, Juba
MISTER PRESIDENT,
You must please citizens, not tribal representatives. At this critical time, you should work harder to stop the nation from falling apart, completely, by preventing a coup d’état, the real one, from happening. In reality, almost every South Sudanese is a passive rebel.
Should anyone decide to dethrone you today, Juba denizens, irrespective of ethnicity, could give up their lives in the name of new leadership because you are hors de combat. You’ve lost both arms and legs in the war, war against underdevelopment, against national disunity. You just cannot develop South Sudan. You cannot unite us. You cannot solve SPLM problems because you’re the problem. You no longer have what it takes to drive South Sudan forward. You piss off everyone, including your admirers. People are so weary of the things you do and do not do.
As a result of December 15 incident, thousands are dead, about a million are homeless, either in UN protection sites or in neighboring countries as international beggars, foreign investors have pulled out and the list goes on and on.
However, there is a room for redemption. You can redeem yourself, Mr President.
You should work to win many people as possible. Actually, people do not need much from you. You should simply pay your employees regularly, build roads, electrify Juba and beyond and inculcate, in your security apparatus, respect for civilians, pay soldiers regularly and work towards winning common man’s admiration, not of bush comrades.
Mr President, even after the crisis which is also deeply rooted in your inability to provide basic services to the people, you still do not pay your employees on time, even those wounded in battlefields. Civil servants waiiit for salaries. It’s so hurtful for a civil servant to see his or her colleague live lavishly when his family is starving. How does one continue to stand by a leader who doesn’t give a kcuf about the welfare of his supporters’ children? By supporters, I’m referring to teachers, university lecturers, doctors and nurses and everyone else on the government payroll.
As a young person, I don’t need financial aid from you to establish myself, neither do I have to be recruited by the Labor Ministry in order to settle; I simply need electricity. Running a business in this country is so costly. It’s made difficult by unavailability of electricity. With government power, I could set up a small business for myself. For example, barber shop, music shop or even a small bar.
Mr President, South Sudanese need road networks so badly. Not only are roads for movements of people from point A to B and vice versa, but also for goods. Due to bad roads, truck owners ask for more from traders who in turn increase food prices. Who is at the receiving end? – Your voters. In Juba, nobody is maintaining the roads. The tarred ones have developed potholes, fishponds.
Look at the beautiful Juba-Nimule road, the pride of South Sudan. It has been damaged by trucks but the concerned ministry has never thought of repairing it. In Juba, Yei road (from the National Security building to checkpoint) is an eyesore. Bad roads not only cause road accidents but they also destroy vehicles slowly by slowly.
An army is a very important arm of any government. Soldiers are a useful group of citizens in every country. They defend their country against external aggression (e.g. 2012 Heglig mini-war), internal disturbance like the current crisis. If it wasn’t for the loyal soldiers, you could not have been in Juba right now. Besides, I believe many ethnic Nuer soldiers defected not because they really like Dr Riek but because they felt your government wasn’t looking after them properly, it doesn’t care about soldiers. It is sad to be approached and begged by a loyal SPLA soldier: “Ya weledna saidu ana. Ena makelta min awel-umbari. Adini shuoya gurush. Shala gene bes.”
The bottom line is: loyalty is a soap; it wears out. Pay your soldiers, always. They have families to cater for. If you treat them well, they will all detach themselves from tribal affiliations…..and they will have undivided allegiance to you.
Mr President, anger builds up in each citizen in the country, particularly Juba. All this is aroused by members of security’s uncouth behaviors. The movement they discover you don’t belong in the ‘kingdom’, they pester you with screwed up questions on suspicion that you might be a rebel. They should know by now that all the rebels left Juba long time ago. Every Juba resident, be he or she a Nuer, Chollo, Bor or Bari, is not a rebel.
By the way, why do national intelligence agents drive numberless vehicles? How intelligent is that? Why do they sleep in five star hotels, in rooms marked “national intelligence guy, don’t disturb”. How intelligent is that? Why do they brag that they are the security guys in bars, weddings venues, funerals etc, how intelligent is that?
Finally, it’s better, Mr President, to be disliked by a bunch of five hundred thankless, corrupt, backstabbing bush comrades than to be wished death upon by nine million people who need nothing from you but schools, roads, clean drinking water, health services, security, power.
Tearz ©2014
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You started really good, but the moment you started saying ” there is room for redemption ” it went downhill. Come on, both Salva and Riak have no room for redemption. These 2 committed crie against humanity. They must go to ICC. We need an interim neutral government that will unite us as be people NOT tribal leaders who after their personal interests.
By the way, beautiful Juba – Nimule road is NOT a South Sudanese pride, but it’s an American pride, built by American tax payer or American people mony NOT South Sudan government or South Sudanese money. It was a gift from the American people to the people of South Sudan. GOSs cannot even feed South Sudanese because it’s so corrupt and rotten to the core with corruption and tribalism.