Breaking News: Lologo Paralysed by Transport Lockdown
5 min readBy Malith Alier, Juba
This has been coming albeit slowly. Since coming to Juba by rebels of the SPLM/A was made possible by the CPA, the road network development was uneven in the capital of the autonomous region and by extension the-would-be Republic. The main roads to various suburbs of Juba like the road to Newsite and Bilpham, the one going to Gudele 1 & 2, Jebel Dinka and Luri, the road to Mauna, Nyakuron west, Rock city, and the road to Jebel market that joins Yei Highway road are fully maintained unlike the poorly planned informal Lologo road.
Facts about Lologo
Lologo, located about eight kilometres from Juba City centre (Juba City is from KCB Juba branch) is part of Rajaf Payam. It comprises Lologo 1 & 2 just like sisterly sprawling suburbs of Juba with duplicate names 1 & 2. This is because of informal settlement with unclear demarcation and separation of suburbs leading to confusion on possible naming of these areas of settlement. Lologo as part of Rajaf Payam, Juba County is outside the jurisdiction of Juba City Council (JCC). Juba City encompasses Kator, Juba and Munuki which are referred to as town blocks with some administrative structures called Quarter Councils.
Lologo 1 & 2 is inhabited by poor people with lowest income in the whole of Juba. The private car ownership comes down to just ten or slightly over that figure as a personal estimate by this writer. This means that about nine tenth of the population is reliant on public transport to and from the main market of Konyokonyo about 6 kilometres away. The difference in transport fare between boda boda and a van popularly known as “bus” is eight South Sudanese Pounds (SSP8). Travelling by bus, costs SSP1 to Lologo 1 and SSP2 to number 2. Many people do not afford the huge gap between boda boda and the van.
Lologo transport woes came to a head today the 13th October 2014 when the motorists or precisely the transport operators decided that enough is enough. The reading of this decision is that Lologo has been neglected for a long time and something has to be done about it. Reps have been elected to the two parliaments of South Sudan and Central Equatoria but do not live in the area and have no firsthand knowledge of what affects those who live in this area. It seems that their contact with Lologo was in 2010 elections and may possibly be in 2015 campaigns when they are again ready to churn out lies about taking towns to people and vote for the “star” which is far away from humanity.
Where is the SPLM, the mother and father of taking towns to people initiative? Ironically, the area reps including one called Duku in CES Parliament and all SPLM as usual seemed to have a nice slumber on the job. The commitment simply evaporated with inauguration to parliaments.
The transport operators are to be congratulated for letting the suffering of people of Lologo be known to the complacent CES SPLM government which is preoccupied with land grabbing mantra. The people who live in Lologo are not land grabbers but simple citizens who need gravelled road like the rest of Juba. Some lucky suburbs have seen asphalt roads however, what Lologo requires is a simple levelled road in order to alleviate the great suffering the area has been in since Adam.
Perhaps due to wrong policies by the government, a tragic miscalculation in June this year saw the demolition of houses in Lologo for all the wrong reasons. The Central Government thought that the pervasive crime in Juba City could be solved through paving internal roads throughout the City. However, instead of paving the main road to Lologo the Kator Town Block when deeper to residential areas as if they were more important than the trunk road to the area.
The damage in the process caused to the several households during rainy season is anyone’s guess. The true explanation of additional suffering lies with the affected people.
Another anomaly is that the internal roads in Lologo were made wider than is normal. All the roads are six lanes with no cars! This country is soon going to be a Disney land, whatever it means.
The true mother of Lologo neglect, created a tarmac road which ended just past Kator St. Theresa Cathedral. During its construction in twenty twelve, many Lologo residents thought that the asphalt would proceed to prisons training camp located right at the end of Lologo 2. That was never to be. It just ended where people of authority come and pray to the god in Kator. Many in the government would have called this taking town to the people. But people of Lologo called it taking towns to Catholic Church.
Had it not been because of the current mayhem brought by Riek Machar and his waywardness, Lologo was soon closer to being an important suburb of Juba. The new bridge road bisects Lologo 2 raising the profile of the neglected north west of Rajaf Payam. The new bridge christened Freedom Bridge is located about six kilometres upstream from the old bridge constructed in the sixties or seventies. This old bridge is no longer strong enough to facilitate heavy truck passage to Western Equatoria and former Bhar el Ghazel region.
The decision by transport operators to lockdown the Lologo route was long overdue. Where the government is silent needs somebody to speak up for the down trodden. The area of Lologo is down trodden and therefore, this course of action should be supported by the inhabitants of Lologo 1 & 2. Every morning and even is a nightmare for the travelling to the market and transport point in Konyokonyo.
Time has come to call upon all the politicians representing Lologo or Rajaf Payam to stopp sleeping on the job. They should be requested to come and explain what happened to the vision of taking towns to rural areas. It is not only the road which is dilapidated, the main bridge connecting the two Lologo 1 & 2 is a major risk to travellers. Nobody should wait up to the last minute to speak. Bravo bus operators. You truly speak for the voiceless.
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