CORRUPT POLITICIANS: SOUTH SUDAN’S POTENTIAL CRIMINALS
7 min read“You know, there is nothing worse than the poverty of the brain… the person is never satisfied at all. The more you get this , the more you feel like to get that – and the other one too, then more and more until you unknowingly swallow yourself in an attempt to leaving nothing un swallowed”……
By KON Joseph LEEK, Juba
February 16, 2015 (SSB) — I am not against corruption but I am only against its abuse, for corruption in any nation can’t be removed but can only be reduced by its “control mechanisms”.
You know that a little stealing here and there is not bad at all; it is only bad when it calls attention to others.
Anyhow, thievery and robbery are proves of country’s advancement because for a country to flourish it must have something to be stolen, and for this, we have to be proud that we are also flourishing because we are having things that are stolen.
Besides, our traditional corruption will continue for sometimes because everyone is a victim; the corruption’s suspect, the appointer of the one to control it [corruption] and the appointed himself [the one to control corruption].
Now, it throws us into dilemmas of who is who here. Who is not corrupt to investigate the other? Chinese says that, “laws are useless when men are pure and unenforceable when men are corrupt – that is Junub El’Sudan in Chinese proverb!
We saw corruption’s control in 2011 and 2013 when AKUIEN and Pagan Amum, then Deng Aloor Kuol and KOSTI MANIBE NGAI were implicated. Though the end was a little pleasing because steps that abruptly ended were taken, it was still comical
Lack of self integrity and moral authority are some of the things we lack in our hearts, so it is a nightmare to exhale something like, “we want a corruption-free country, now!”
My campaign is one sided; let’s adopt the East Africa’s corruption system where a public figure steals and set up companies to employ others. There, you will eat your stolen stuffs peacefully without any interference from whoever because the number you’ll have employ would be there to secure their positions by guiding you.
But where you consistently rob without fear and shyness – with a gun in your left hand and loot with your right hand then you hasten to bank them under your bed without plans will only develop bitterness and hatred that will incite unemployed youth to rise up against you with machetes, sticks, pangas and axes to split open your nicely and healthily fed bellies – and we [youth] don’t want to do that because we love how they [bellies] dangles anyway
This motive of robbing and marry more wives or running to Uganda or wherever to buy a house and hide your families there, then you return and begin to move around mischievously and misbehaving to cause havoc will make you a loose politician whose purpose of politicking is selfish with the agenda of “blood sucking and robbing” but not to save the New Nation’s destitute populace
One lion may be fitter than the other lions but that does not explain how he got to be a lion and all his offspring will still be lions not something else. You, as leaders are not something far much unreachable beyond any other human being. You were mandated by the people to lead them and they can, as it is there right to decree you out if you don’t meet their needs however much you decorate yourselves with military titles, tanks and bombs. Aren’t you yet alert that elections are just inches away or do you think that you are still our role-models?
Why should some people want to destroy the country they suffered much to liberate? Can’t something truly be done without any negative hidden agenda behind it? Shall we always view political aspirations and positions as tools of looting and thieving? …. And you always tell us to follow your footsteps!
This is one of the reasons that brought about the on-going man-made calamity; fighting in front of the saucepan between “it’s my chance” and “it’s not yet your chance” factions
Is the slogan “we liberated you [this young Nation]” a free ticket to munch it your own style? Was “eating” a guarantee to liberate this Nation? Why should you malnourished the very own country you much struggled to liberate?
When we say “corruption”, it is it, not something new, it didn’t recently root. The present has been there right from the start. Only that we have been too blind to see or too busy to notice
We are breathing in a Country of two types of men, the type that lives by their sweat and that one that lives by the sweat of others, where the types that lives by other peoples’ sweat calls themselves the “angels of the nation” and I call them “new Nation’s angels of death” because their eating beyond their territory is making others surely die of hunger and they don’t seem to care.
They mercilessly, unabatedly and convolutedly corrupt without nervousness and still walk around telling us that, “corruption is dreadful” and again goes for it! They are really living embodiment of what they preach!
Gier Chuang, when he was still the minister of roads and bridges once vehemently told us in Uganda in the present of Hon. Bashir Gbandi [deputy minister of foreign affairs] and Hon. Prof. Mijok Mijak Bilkuei [deputy minister of roads and bridges] that, ‘do not inherit our tribalism, nepotism and corruption’, it was really a good fatherly advice to his children but again, how can a child divert his father’s foot step? Uncle Gier’s advice was as good as impossible anyway. What we know of our fathers is corruption, tribalism, nepotism, rebellion, media suppression, arrogance and many more; until you change your way of life, we will always be like you – like father like son, remember!
It is not about me or him or her. It is about the basic needs of the people you corned to bring you to power, it is about roads, electricity, water, schools, and hospitals mention them. We know that your children do not study here and they [you] are not treated here either. We are treated here, die and buried here but you guys, like your children are treated abroad and maybe die from there – and later buried here, and this is why you are only mindful of your “positions” but not “what to do” in your positions.
Our weaknesses and backwardness are generally attributed to the inability of our leaders to rise to their responsibilities and not that, “our country is a child” or young nation as always famed by some government officials – unless a child is malnourished or orphaned is a good reason it can still scrawl up to this time now
JUNUB is what it is today because its leaders are not what they are supposed to be. They are not what they explain themselves to be! Still gambling to resolve the issues of youth unemployment!
Our own Kiir, president Salva is a right man. A man his “kindness” is mistaken for “weakness”
We want our ministers/ leaders to be individuals or technocrats with moral authority, those ones that value their training [ethics] and dignity more than bending to eating public foods he/she was made to keep, distribute and maintain and not just those who claim to be rewarded for they have liberated us [the Nation]
The more they try to be good boys to the president by betraying the community, the more they only tarnish the reputation and the standing of the president to the community’ said Late Isaiah Abraham.
The writer is a commentator on contemporary South Sudan; He can be reached on j.konleek@gmail.com & 0955091449
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