UNEMPLOYED YOUTHS: The Potential Criminals of South Sudan
6 min readBy KON Joseph LEEK, Juba
By crawling, a child learn to stand, are we really still crawling? This is one of the excuses which is still making us really think like a child because we are making it real by saying it on and on, and on, let’s believe that our country is a child but is no longer breast-feeding, and now standing …..
January 15, 2015 (SSB) — As once said by Burkina Faso’s strongman, Thomas Sankara [1983-87] that, ‘a soldier without any political or ideological training is a potential criminal’. I agree with him, just like any other individual
To get the potential criminals Sankara was referring to doesn’t need you to fly to Ouagadougou in order to meet them [potential criminals] if you think that they are only in Burkina Faso….. Or travels back to 1983-87 if your mind shifts to years with the expectations that they only existed in the 80s
They are here with us, in the 2000s, even in Juba. Very good example treks back to 1st of January, 2015 when Juba was like “attacked” by the rebels but not, only potential criminals were in the making – normal phenomenon!
Now, the government (military branch) is trying to search for them and thereafter show them what has lent them the false feathers of their men hood – I would really want to see the prison they will be put in, it would surely be half of Juba
To some one, s/he may think that potential criminals can be got only among the armed forces according to Sakkara’s words but is extended to other professions where ideological training is not taken seriously or perceived and where people are also physically trained and not taught about the ethics of their profession (code of conducts)
Where you are trained physically and not ideologically will make you “loose” just like a goat without a rope – imagine what a goat does when it has no rope [not tightened with a rope], it goes on eating other people’s crops without any permission-that is exactly “a person without ideological training”. Ideological training is the human rope [qualification’s rope].
To relate this to youths’ unemployment, in the developed countries, most of the crimes are carried out or master-minded by highly learned individuals-tricksters of their own nature. We have many West African-learned West Africans in Juba here who have tricked many people with the issues of “black dollar” and so forth,… various individuals who dealt with these people ended up hurt, left with the only hope that, “if they ever meet them (the conmen) again, the only first word [greeting] and the last perhaps should be kalanshinov’s bullet in the head”. Those thoughts are only figments of their own imaginations.
How can you trick a Nigerian in Abuja till you take all his belongings and ran back to Juba and expect to go back again? Where any think of that, then just know that he simply needs a psychological attention-take him or her to a psychiatrist straight. This is what they [West Africans] are doing here; cause us misfortunes and run back to their countries
African says that, “he who causes you misfortune also teaches you wisdom”. If you are a victim of such tricks, just learn from them and be an advocate against it to sensitize the people not to fall in to that trap again and reserve your bullets for their better purposes they were given to you.
In many Eritrean, Ethiopian and Kenyan hotels, you only see a South Sudanese at the gate as watchman, and as washers of clothes and cleaners of rooms, all the other jobs are taken by them [foreigners]. The same thing is to organizations and companies. Youths are not comfortable with that
The government is yet to come back and tell us that, ‘the ministerial order of 17th September, 2014 as agreed by cabinet’s meeting chaired by H.E Salva Kiir with the subject that: press statement on circular No. 007/2014: Ministerial circular prohibiting and regulating the Service and Employment of aliens in certain positions in the private sector’ was whimsical and has been reversed because we as the youth are seeing no difference between “before the order” and “after the order”.
Later when South Sudan will have tenth of thousands of unemployed university graduates, don’t you think that they will embark on looking for unholy ways of getting money? Isn’t it better to control them now before they are too many and still ignorant because they are not yet aware that “bunch of unemployed learned guys are the top potential criminals”? Isn’t it better to control them now?
South Sudan is a good Country with honest, emotional and straight-forward people who are not yet introduced to the civilized and globalized robbery and thievery [corruption]. Our corruption is still extra-ordinary, still traditional. You remember in cattle-keeping places where a person leaves with his spear or gun to raid other persons’ cattle, he would want to kill him and take all his cows-no mercy! This is what has been equated in to the so-called modern thievery and robbery [corruption] in Juba.
We corrupt without fear and favor because you have your pistol stacked on your shoulder then AK47 on your left hand and loots with your right hand tough-looking and red-eyed
A unique country without entrepreneurs but only looters [Entrepreneurship is where you start your business with something small and grows big later] but here in South Sudan, we start our businesses with the bundles of money [something big] and begins to diminish later as business goes on until you get no money and business at all
I am not against corruption because its control is a miracle but I am against “its abuse” [abuse of corruption].
You know, a little stealing here and there is not bad at all; it is only bad when it calls attention to others. Theft and robbery are not really bad because they are the measure of country’s progress; for theft and robbery to flourish, there must be something to be stolen as once said by Chinua Achebe.
We know that we lacks moral authority here in our new Nation because the one to audit the looters, the looters who are to be audited and the appointer of the auditor are as good as “corruption” itself, and for this I give no hope to immediate throwing-away of corruption, it will erode a little by little with time
Now, the question is, why should we steal and not making or creating some business empires to employ our youth to engage them and save them from idle minds that might possibly turn out to be Devils’ workshops? Or are we not able to think of the businesses to create? Who/what disarms our thinking?
Should we always base ourselves on the false reasons of saving our stolen monies in the bags under the beds without investing it and begins to dash it out like no-tomorrow, and when you are relieved from your position/office tomorrow you scarpered to the rebel sides and you begin to say, ‘government this….. and government that because you are unable to place your future!
Not shall we always relay on getting employed and not creating other jobs but nothing can also be started without something small to start it with…… and this can’t also be a time for South Sudan to be in dismay of what to do for youth because the learned are indeed just a “coma” to the “jobs” if the jobs were the “paragraph”.
Save the country from more potential criminals please, if we close our eyes to facts then you will learn through accident!
–
The writer is a commentator on Contemporary South Sudan; He can be reached on; j.konleek@gmail.com & 0955091449
About Post Author
