Contrary to your theory, President Salva Kiir did not ascend to power by sheer luck
4 min readThere is no Luck in Becoming President: A Theory of Luck in President Kiir’s Ascendancy to Power is Baseless
By David Deng Chapath, Kampala Uganda
April 4, 2017 (SSB) — I have kept quiet for very long time concerning the theory which many propagandists have been developing to explain how President Kiir came to power. But it is time now to break the silence on this theory by telling those people that luck and hard work go together. This is because a person cannot be lucky to the extent of becoming president without having worked for it.
As defined, luck is a success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions. This definition clearly shows that luck means getting something one has not completely worked for. For example, someone who finds dropped money on the way but no one reclaims from him or her can be said to be lucky because he or she has not worked for that money.
Luck as also defined above can be failure. This means that it is something unstable and uncertain which is not determinable. Thus, luck is not certain source of success to the extent that someone depends on it.
However in our case, General Salva Kiir Mayardit did work for his present post. This is because he rose from ranks to ranks in the SPLM/A due to his hard work and by the time Garang died, he was the favourites. Without his rank I do not think whether he would have been chosen yet there were several generals such as General Kuol Manyang and other Generals who were present by that time.
He was, therefore, chosen due to the fact that he was already a general, which was evident of his hard work. Some people may ask if not luck then why the other generals as I have mentioned above not chosen.
However, my answer to the above question is that it was not luck per se but Kiir had additional advantage which put him above others. For instance, he was next to Garang in hierarchy; besides, he was one of the faithful officers whom all other generals trusted to lead South Sudan to independence after the death of Garang.
As seen above, it must be pointed out that the fact that Kiir became a president through appointment after the death of Garang does not mean that he was lucky. I would therefore like to tell the rebels and theorists who developed theory on luck that their allegations and theories are baseless and misconceived.
This is because in 2010, Kiir was elected in general elections by all Southern Sudanese winning election by 93% and in 2015 the Constitution was amended which extended the term of Kiir for three years. All these show that although there is was an element of luck in 2005 when Kiir appointed and took power, in 2010 and 2015 there was no luck but he worked for it.
For that reason the people who hold theory of luck must be told that such a theory is baseless and they must know that their theory is wrong.
In summary, I would like to conclude by emphasizing the above discussion that President Kiir did not get power through luck but he worked for it; he has never rebels against South Sudan to get power but people of South Sudan trusted him.
Kiir is now legitimate president and he will be the one to give power to someone to someone through general elections. If luck is the one which makes people to become presidents why doesn’t other person come to take power from him by luck?
NB//: the author is South Sudanese student residing in Uganda and can be reached through: dengdavid00@gmail.com
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