Open letter to Mr. Ateny Wek Ateny, President Salva Kiir’s Press Secretary
By Sunday de John, New Delhi, India
May 27, 2017 (SSB) — Many Greetings to you and blessings. Dear brother, I hope this finds you in good health. The purpose of this open letter is to wake you up from your deep slumber, get energised and serve the nation by issuing incredible, static and well-founded information.
Dear brother, on many counts you have been to the public knowledge as a man that beats the drums of truth. I first came to know you when your article was forwarded to me by Akol Ayom Wek Ateny, I published the article on the day Dr Khalil Ibrahim forces stormed the Omdurmans. We were solely running the newspaper with ustaz Adam Cholong and one Designer since all the workers were kept indoors by the insecurity invoked by the then masquerading fighters. Although not relevant to the issues of that day it was worthy of publication.
Dear brother, your then Column, Beating the Drums of Truth, was a great service to the country. It had zealously fought corruption and the corrupt. It has exposed the likes of Kornelio Koriom Mayiik and their hidden bad hands to the core. It had in fact disserviced those whose operations were counterproductive. You deserve a credit for that. Thumbs up!
In our recent meeting in Nairobi, in the funeral of Baba Africa, aka Gen, elder and Hon Lual Diing Wol, we had few exchanges on our national matters but I couldn’t give you the best of my account on your deviation. This time, I should be very frank to you brother, your core values are no longer holding. You are no longer telling the truth.
As remarked by John Dalberg-Action aka Lord Action that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. I stand to extrapolate and reproduce a rather shorter version of that for the purpose of this letter that being close to power tends to corrupt and being closer to absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The notion is, your truth telling ability has gone, your reasoning ability is shaky and admittedly you have many times herniated beyond the confines of your defined role. More so, you have lied to us the public openly severally. You are an honest man but telling half-truth or untrue information is dishonesty. You have no records on theft or any graft as to that effect but that doesn’t equates to lack of corruption. Words rigging is corruption. Your recent statements on the reforms within the Sudan People’s Liberation Army can augment this argument.
It is perceived that you are communicating the President’s reactions to the world events and providing information about the actions of the state house. However, at times deviations have become apparent and the information you alley becomes either your personal opinion or altogether contrary.
As the lead press personnel in J1, please do not act as an independent political analyst exchanging countercurrent views with like of Brian Adeba or Alex De Waal. We need static information from the Presidency. It should as well be credible or incredible and too, well-founded.
Dear brother, I must not go hard on you, I am pleading that you adopt truthfulness, genuineness of information and it must always be static or no information at all.
After that, I would want you from an honest note as a man with unfettered access to the President to convey my belated warmest greetings of the New Year to him. Furthermore, I would want you to let him also know my message of a loyal citizen as follows.
Dear my President, General Salva Kiir Mayardit, accept my few words and mull over them for at least few minutes of your time. I am of a view that you remove the curtain of ignorance and fear of speculations. Be open to the citizens, get out of concealment, monitor your projects and one such is the National Dialogue agenda. Leaving your projects at the perils of those you appoint have been disappointing to you. Be a supervisor. That is one of your primary roles.
Remember, as gargantuan a challenge as the struggle against successive Khartoum’s regimes was, and as fulfilling as independence of South Sudan thereafter, your concern should not end there. As a leader, you owe South Sudanese a lot. They need improvement on their lives. They need peace. They need food. The unsheltered need shelter now and that is possible only with silence of the guns. Dwelling on the reports of your appointees is an acknowledgement of regression. Progress. Come out and supervise their work.
Lastly but not the least, tell those that sit around you to deconstruct their concept of the enemy. Nobody is each other’s enemy. We are citizens of one nation. Prove your doubters wrong by being the cohesion the South Sudanese could revolve around, particularly at these tempting times.
Treat all South Sudanese as equals before you just as they are equal before God. Tribalism has not been your prime core value but of late its symptoms are appearing and so you ought to suppress it totally. South Sudanese must be disallowed at all costs from practicing tribalism. As I always say, tribes should be intact but tribalism must be crushed painfully.
Tell those that steal in the name of being government officials at least to stop for a while or smash their balls altogether. As well, let what was ran for in Juba marathon, the little you solicit from your friends and the donation from well-wishers be directed to the famine affected sectors right now regardless of the ethnic lineage.
I hope this finds you well, yours truly Mr. Teetotaler!
You can reach the author, Sunday de John, via his email: emmajoson@yahoo.com
The opinion expressed here is solely the view of the writer. The veracity of any claim made are the responsibility of the author, not PaanLuel Wël: South Sudanese Bloggers (SSB) website. If you want to submit an opinion article or news analysis, please email it to paanluel2011@gmail.com. SSB do reserve the right to edit material before publication. Please include your full name, email address and the country you are writing from.
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