Judas Iscariot of South Sudan: A response to Deng Mayen‘s article on Hon. Mayiik Ayii
8 min readAvoid becoming Judas Iscariot of South Sudan: A response to Deng Mayen‘s article entitled Hon. Mayiik Ayii Deng – functionally illiterate and most corrupt minister
By David Deng Chapath, Kampala, Uganda
May 7, 2017 (SSB) — I find it irresistible to begin this article in response to Deng Mayen with the words of Tom Cochrane that “Tragedy in life normally comes with betrayal and compromise, and trading on your integrity and not having dignity in life. That’s really where failure comes”. As Lucien Bouchard once put it, “I have never known a more vulgar expression of betrayal and deceit.” In his recent article as referred to above and published on May 02, 2017 on Nyamilepedia in which Deng Mayen referred himself as a former SPLA Freedom Fighter and a friend to Mayiik Ayii Deng in Minnesota Community College made the following assertions against Hon. Minister Mayiik Deng:
That Mayiik is part of the Criminal Syndicate which is seriously targeting the huge contracts in the Oil Operating companies in the Country. That Mayiik Ayii and the senior member of the Criminal network Ezekiel Lol have intimidated the Management of Nilepet to award a contract of Oil Drilling in Bentiu to their Chinese businessman after getting a kickback of Eleven Millions USD. That the Management of Nilepet has refused and awarded a contract to a national company called Nile Drilling Services Co. Ltd and because of that the Chinese businessman was disappointed after failing to secure the contract and is asking his money back.
That the Syndicate had also influenced the Presidency to grant Block B3 to Nigerian tycoon called Prince Arthur with conditions of getting bribery of Twenty Millions USD. Because of that Prince Arthur was obliged to pay Fifteen Million USD to the government as a signature bonus after signing a contract with the Ministry of Petroleum.
That as a result, Prince has paid only Eight Million Two hundred thousand dollars, the rest were paid to the Syndicate. They also negotiated with oil operating companies without involving technical expertise. That the Criminal networks are busy implementing their agenda of looting and corrupting the Oil industry
That Mayiik Ayii can’t write comments on the letters referred to his Office for a necessary action by the President and that, the Ministry of Presidential Affairs needs an SPLM cadre with realistic qualifications and moral obligations. It is embarrassing to the nation to have an uneducated person as a Minister in the Office of the President. President should think twice before this illiterate Minister drive the nation into the political chaos.
In summary, Mayen attacks against Mayiik ranged from corruption, illiteracy and attack on a country which he refers to as dysfunctional country to attacking all public office holders.
In response to the accusations of Mayen Deng as listed above, I would like to say onset of this response that Mayen Deng all the above accusations are not worth to be listened to. As seen in his words above, Mayen Deng is disgruntled individual. I am saying this not because I am defending Hon. Mayiik Deng but because his attacks on Honourable Minister are malicious and false and baseless as they are intended to defame the Minister due to the following reason—
First of all, Mayen Deng does not have any concrete evidence to back his allegations so making such general accusations that the Minister is involved in corruption is unfortunate and hopeless. If Mayen has evidence, let him produce otherwise if he fails to produce one then he is relying on mere hearsay. Hearsay cannot be relied on as it is built on lies and malice.
Mayen Deng has indicated in the final part of his article which I am now responding to that he is a friend to the Minster and if that a case, then he is a Judas Iscariot of South Sudan. He behaves like Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. Mayen should know how friends treat each other. A friend in need is a friend indeed as English people say.
In that respect, therefore, a real friend will never preach weaknesses of his or her friend but he or she can tell his or her friend something wrong in order to correct him or her. I am saying this because if the allegations made by Mayen Deng against honourable minister were correct but since they are not correct; then, there is no need to advise him because he is a wild guy who did not know what to say against the Minister.
I have said he did not know what to say against Minister in the above paragraph because he is in Minnesota Community College in the USA which means that he is not on the ground and the question is: how did he get this information? This can be explained by two reasons:
First, if his allegations are correct, then he is also a party to it or a friend to someone who is a party to it but he or his friend is disappointed because he has not got what they expected from the deal. Second, his allegations are based on hearsay from his friends on the grounds, which show that his allegations are politically motivated. This is because he has found Honourable Mayiik to be the softest target as attacking the whole government may cause him trouble.
To show that his accusations are not correct Mayen Deng seems not to be far touched from economic realities on the ground. If he were on the ground he would have understood the economic crisis the country is undergoing and for that reason he would have not made such a blatant false accusation against the Minister.
We saw on SSBC last time president donating four hundred thousand South Sudanese pounds, if such amount was around the President would have donated more but since there is no money that was the reason he donated such little amount. I therefore wonder whether the allegations of Mayen Deng against the Minister are founded in any facts. In other words, they are false.
Mayen Deng instead appears to have been paid by undisclosed principal to defame Hon. Minister Mayiik in order for the president to remove him and employ the person who is using him. This fact is clearly brought out in his conclusion when he concluded thus:
“In conclusion, the Ministry of Presidential Affairs needs an SPLM cadre with realistic qualifications and moral obligations. It is embarrassing to the nation to have an uneducated person as a Minister in the Office of the President. President should think twice before this illiterate Minister drives the nation into the political chaos”.
The above statement shows two things: first, it shows that Mayen Deng is advocating for appointment a person he did not refer to in his article but she or she is clearly in his mind. Second to it, it shows the inconsistency of Mayen Deng with what he is saying as he appears to be accusing the Minister of illiteracy but he does not correlate the illiteracy with corruption he is accusing minister of. This shows that he does not know what he is saying but just concocted the facts to get the ground that he can accuse the Hon. Minister on.
I hope Mayen Deng may not be making allegations that it is only educated people who are not corrupt which is not true. In South Sudan, corruption exists everywhere even among highly educated so it does not mean that if uneducated person is employed as minister then he or she is corrupt.
Accusing Hon. Minister of a member of criminal syndicate is rather unfortunate. This is because a crime is a matter of law that must be proved beyond reasonable doubt and before it is proved as such, a person cannot be declared as criminal. This shows that Mayen Deng is just making unsubstantiated allegations.
The allegations made by Mayen Deng against Hon. Minister are wrong and moreover without basis because he does not have anything to say against the minister but he was just looking for a soft target. In fact, Mayen is against the whole system of leaving out his friends from employment so that he can influence the government. This is clearly shown by the following statement:
“In dysfunctional countries, public office holders focus primarily on personal aggrandizement while the state fails to perform essential functions. It is important to examine the functioning of the Office of the President under the leadership of the functionally illiterate and incompetent Hon. Minister Mayiik Ayii Deng. He has turned the office into a center of corruption and political gambling. It is embarrassing to appoint a primary school dropout as Minister in the Office of the President. I am urging Mayiik Ayii Deng to resign from his ministerial portfolio and do intensive English Course to equip himself”.
The above statement clearly shows that Mayen is against the whole system and because of that he does not know where to begin from since reckless beginning may land him in hot water with authorities. Thus, he did that tactically by getting a soft target that is Hon. Minister as this will not put him in more trouble.
In summary, I must conclude as Sergei Lavrov once observed about Ukrainian crisis, which is true in regard to South Sudan that the attempts to distort the truth and to hide the facts behind blanket accusations have been undertaken at all stages of the crisis of South Sudan. All the accusations made by Mayen Deng against Hon. Minister are not correct and no one should believe them.
He is just unfairly targeting honourable minister to express his anger with the whole system. He is also taking advantage of what other people think about honourable minister as some people believe that he is not a good person. Therefore, Mayen Deng is just capitalizing on that perception only. Otherwise his allegations are baseless.
NB//: the author is South Sudanese student residing in Uganda and can be reached through: dengdavid00@gmail.com
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