The Quandary of Governance and Insecurity in South Sudan
By Majok Mabior, Juba, South Sudan
August 4, 2015 (SSB) — The government of South Sudan and its development partners appear to be heavily focused on state building and less so on nation building: the question of how to turn the young state into a nation in which all South Sudanese can see themselves represented and forgetting that tribalism will take it part in the nation. The insecurity in south Sudan today is as result of misappropriation and high percentage of national resources that was used for the procurement of military hardware and maintenance of large military forces in the hope of promoting physical security at the expense of quality of living for the citizens. Governance and security go hand-in-hand and as such the welfare and well being of the people rest solely on the government.
South Sudan has been face by many problems that we have hands. Tribalism has being a major threat to our national security as south Sudanese just because the government has developed the system that promote tendency shape on tribal governance where governors and commissioners are from the same states and counties instead of mixed them during the appointment to represent the central government in various position in different states and counties.
We have an epidemic of insecure people in our society today. Many people have an identity crisis because they don’t really know who they are and they base their worth and value on all the wrong things – what they do, what they look like, who they know, what they know or what they own.
Both political leaders and ordinary citizens recognize the importance of national unity and security of our populations and the equitable display and celebration of cultural diversity as a national asset; representation of all ethnic nationalities and creation of a broad-based government is central to South Sudan’s transition to nationhood. The immediate challenge involves creating programs that promote unity, national interest of the country among they citizens in the nation over ethnic citizenship.
In my own view, they governors and commissioners shouldn’t be from the same state because it gives tribalism a room among they south Sudanese and in the long run. We shall not have potential leaders that will take over the country since each one of politician is concentrating in his or her own state and only knows to local citizens of that county or state.
To project our national interest in the region and the whole world than we need to adopt the British system that where use during Anglo-Egyptian Sudan period1899 to 1955 where commissioners were mixed in all part of southern provinces and by that time, we called ourselves southerners and that is why we manage to fight the northern part of Sudan.
We have to abolish the system that encourage division of our people and use a right system that will forge for unity of this country. It should be mentioned that there are some weaknesses in governance that caused insecurity challenges in the country. The government should promote the capabilities of security forces of the country and employ young generation in the rows of these forces.
The author is a student of strategic and security studies at the University of Juba in South Sudan
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