TGoNU Formation: New Wine, Old Wineskin!
5 min readBy Peter Ngor Atem, Nairobi, Kenya
May 2, 2016 (SSB) —- Dear readers, running a country e.g South Sudan, is a tango dance, it takes two. It requires the governors and the governed to respectively exercise their constitutionally bestowed duties. That’s what is called social contract. There’s no shortcut to effective and vibrant governance system, anchored upon principles of democracy, rule of law and respect for human dignity. Without fear, favour or prejudice, it is the failure to implement the doctrine of collective responsibility that the South Sudan plunged into lethal civil war, sweats broken, lives ceased, River Nile of tears cried and blood spilled.
Without much ado, let me relegate this discussion to another day as I elect to beguile your attention to the big elephant in the room: formation of TGoNU. Dear readers, in this article, clever readers will accuse me of waging intergenerational war. Others will indict me for standing in the path of TGoNU and ARCISS by extension. The non-wise will bring against me a charge sheet of ‘hating on our political dinosaurs’.
But, I am doing none of the above. Indeed, I am calling the devil by its name. The scriptural allusion has it that it is the bad wine dresser who would put their wine in the old wineskins. This is because the old wineskins, as it were, had been stretched to the limits, or become brittle, as wine had fermented inside them, hence using them again risked bursting them. The recently formed Transitional Government of National Unity (aka TGoNU) is confirmatory test for biblical allusion as explained above. The dispensation (TGoNU) is new but the system (old ministers in their old ministries) is old.
Peopling TGoNU with the same old guards is a deferral of the South Sudan’s fundamental problem. Our politico-military leaders have outlived their usefulness. Senility has set in big time. They have recurrently made high stake connivance and maneuvering to ensure that the peaceful settlement to dreadful armed conflict wasn’t reached with speed. In fact, it beats logic to send a hyena on a herding spree and expect all your goats to return home.
As much as I know, it was our sustained obsession to cease the fire and commence the sound government of national unity. The masses of our country direly needed to see the full stop to the war because primarily they’re the ones facing extinction due to war.
We hungrily wanted our political big fish: H.E Gen. Kiir Mayardit and H.E Dr. Riek Machar, to get together in Dec. 15, 2013, didn’t we?
The recycling of the old, wearied individuals is an affront on the intelligence of the youthful population armed with ever functioning brains and brawns. The youths are techno-savvy, well learned with the modern education to, of course, keep up with advancement in science and technology of 21st century.
The, not so badly fettered, Youths have the prerequisite answers to nip the thorny national questions at the buds. But see! The 99.9 % of them have been relegated to second fiddle! The political leadership of RSS is flying in the faces of already crying youths and this begs the questions.
Will the youths’ ‘turn-to-eat’ ever come in South Sudan? Will keeping the youths in the political limbo ever end in South Sudan? Posting the likes of Hon. Dr. Peter Adwok, Hon. Deng Athorbei, Hon. Michael Makuei, Hon. Deng Alor, Hon. Dr. Elia Lomoro etc etc , in the same ministerial portfolios they previously held (and of course did nothing substantial )is a bad decision.
Since inception, these old individuals (singly or in association) generously contributed in the drawbacks of South Sudan. Power greed, inactions and corruption are their ‘common denominator’. They have shot our country in the foot. Others have opened the heart of our country courtesy of “Dec. 15 Incident “(a Peaceful word for ‘Coup’).
Reminded by the foregoing objective realities, what good result does an old man, in Pakeer, expect from individuals whose reputations are tarnished by their previous system malfunctioning! Are they (old guards) receptive to radical changes proposed in ARCISS? Have they disabused themselves of their obvious mentality of blame appointment, finger-pointing and labelling? Have they opened a new chapter in terms of THINKING, TALKING, DOING and EATING??
Have the MAKUEIs of Information Ministry stopped uttering emotive statements which may incite armed violence? As I wrap up, our sun has not yet set at noontime ….there are some rays of hope that ‘Yes We Can Make it’ to a peaceful South Sudan. One, I have a high hope that the few youthful individuals(who caught appointing Authorities’ eyes) to the cabinet (Hon. Mabior, Hon. Devil Yau Yau, Hon. Napon ,Hon. Akol Paul etc) will do a superb job of checking and balancing the regime from within since there is no opposition party under the new dispensation .
It is everyone’s prayer to see them make watchful ‘watchmen’ of our few petrodollars. They also have primitive energy to fan the commencement of the mega development projects that have been deferred since the birth of our state. Two, the well-meaning old guards e.g Gen. Kuol Manyang, Hon. Stephen Dhieu, out of the whole battalion of old minsters, will open a brand new chapter. They’ll place South Sudan’s interests over and above theirs.
Three, the situation is rectifiable by putting high premium on the letter and spirit of the ARCISS. Just like any other agreements, ARCISS is neither a Quran nor a Bible, it has its enormous flaws in terms of steering and ratifying.
But it is capable of propelling us towards attaining a more vibrant, youthful and useful government in the near future. It (ARCISS) has the balls to rekindle the dashing hope for a stable, unified and peaceful South Sudan. Let’s the struggle continue because it is Not Yet Uhuru!
Peter Ngor Atem is a concerned South Sudanese and a Law Student, University of Nairobi, Nairobi. He is reachable at ngorpeters@gmail.com
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