If Salva Kiir is weak in leading the Nation: Who is helping Him to stand upright?
7 min readBy Ariik Atekdit Mawien, Juba, South Sudan
October 17, 2016 (SSB) — Most of the times at our coffee and tea places, the South Sudanese President, Mr. Kiir Mayardit has been severally discussed about. Kiir being the president of the country becomes the most central point to whom any amount of blames and wrongdoings that are occurring in South Sudan are put upon.
Some people have concluded that Kiir is a burden of the nation that should have been got rid of and thrown away, long before now. Most of the people continue and try to praise Late Dr John Garang De Mabior, thinking that if he (Garang) was alive then South Sudan would have not slid into such a crisis after the independence.
The nastiest of all is that even the enemies of Garang have begun to praise Garang now after he had gone into the grave a business they failed to reveal when he was alive and solid. How reasonable is it for a person to have opposed and cursed Garang when alive and praise him when dead? This is the same scenario they want to repeat about Kiir. If they had not supported Garang why would you think that the same elements can support Kiir who is Garang’s disciple? We need to think wiser than we must just assume.
The question is: are these people fair to blame Kiir in totality for the failure of the nation? If so, who can correctly authenticate whether they are right or wrong about their assumptions on Kiir’s failure with their exclusion? Is Kiir really a bad President to deserve curse or rebellion? And if Garang was a saintly principal; why was he cursed and rebelled against? We need to think, analyze before we admit or take action on other people’s utterances on Kiir. I can acknowledge that, we must have failed as a nation but not solitarily Kiir at the Presidency.
As South Sudanese, we have refused to accept that our support for President Kiir can also count and help South Sudan take a step ahead. The mistake we take is that we never differentiate the variation between Kiir as a person at the Presidency and the nation that we claim to be proud of. If you have refused to stand and support Kiir to develop and unite the nation how can he alone manage to do it without you?
There are some individuals who are praying and working day and night to make South Sudan fail because they think that South Sudan carries the full definition of Kiir, hoping that South Sudan re-born methodology would revive the country but they are wrong. How would you kill your first born child and hope that their identical resembles would be born in the next nine months of pregnancy? That is what we can fittingly term as lack of patriotism. Patriotism ladies and gentlemen is not only about counting the number of bullets shot at you during the liberation struggle or explaining much of how one had bravely fought during Nasir, Yei or Tonj war against Jalaba. Patriotism must remain constant in one’s everyday life and practices. It should not be fluctuating like the way it is and had been within some elements in South Sudan politics.
The citizens of South Sudan whether politicians or not have taken back seats and blame the driver without giving an opinion of where shall the road turns to; if indeed the nation has missed the track. Most recently they are taking target killings along highways; is that the best we can do in search of our lost path? Yes, the nation might have missed the track but do the passengers have an opinion of success to help the driver go safely?
As a journalist, I have got some good chances to ask questions like: What is the problem of South Sudan’s nationwide insecurity? Why are we unable to wage successful wars against corruption and tribalism? Who is blocking South Sudan development policy?
The answers that I may sometimes get from some of the officials like: state governors, ministers whether former or current both at the national and state levels prove to me that, yes, the nation has missed the track. This is because some people try to joke around and admit that the problem is at the nation’s top helm and they totally refuse to be accountable for their wrongdoings. They want Kiir to be blamed for whatever mistakes they have committed at their authorities and offices. How dare are they?
The driver maybe driving the vehicle while the passengers in the bus don’t know their destination and that is the problem of South Sudan. The passengers don’t really know their residential stations. And therefore the driver continues to drive the bus even at the time the passengers should have stopped and work out some home assignments. The passengers complain and the driver doesn’t know how to help his clients because they don’t want to spot out their problem in order to direct accurate diagnosis to the predicament. And this is what must be solved.
I am saying this because even the very people who claim in public to be the diehard supporters of President Kiir speak evils against him at daylight. They speak against him even when they are wearing barges of President Kiir’s head at their chests. If such practices occur commonly in the society how can the system go successfully? They speak against him even when they are the very people responsible for any wrongdoings that has brought us apart as a nation or fetched down our economy with the majority paying the price today while few drive and enjoy.
Today majority of our government officials are the ones who talk back to the West to continue tightening the situation of South Sudan as a means of regime change policy; while they forget that they are part of the regime which is to be overthrown? If you have corrupted in Kiir’s administration why do you think that you have high chances to be Kiir’s alternative?
I feel so small and confusing sometimes when I see some people boasting that without them this government cannot operate. Or else say that Kiir is nobody and knows nothing more than what they claim to know. When indeed the folder they are supposed to seal is unfastened. If men are at work, they must unite, sweat and see the result of their sweat in the total success of their system. This is what South Sudan officials failed to do and yet they claim to be cleverer than Kiir at the President. How can an appointee claim to be stronger than the person who appoints while he/she fails perform? Ladies and gentlemen action speaks louder than words.
Common citizens are at astonishment when they see, ministers refusing to do their duties and claim to take up the Presidency while the undersecretaries seemed to have been undermined for having not being appointed as ministers as the Directors see their qualifications more than those of their bosses.
This is a bad chain that must break. We must work at any level to serve our nation not always looking at the upper positions. If the director does his work, the undersecretary will automatically knows what do and the minister will be very busy to think of Kiir’s position and the common citizen will enjoy their services delivered to them by their patriotic servants and that is all. If Kiir is weak, then indeed I have not seen yet a person helping him to stand upright.
The author is a long time experienced journalist, a freelancer and holds a bachelor of education in bio/chemistry. He can be reached @ Atekdit Mawien: ariqdudic@gmail.com
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