Mayiik Deng and Ateny Wek: The Dead Woods in the Palace (J-1)
“The real prison is the wall of silence erected around you by your colleagues, which prevents you from seeing or hearing the truth, until I have arrived to this place (Paris), I didn’t know I have been overthrown in Khartoum,” says Sudanese President late Jafaar Mohammed Nimeri in 1985.
By Kharubino Kiir Garang, Juba, South Sudan
July 21, 2017 (SSB) — One of the revulsions of history is that it often repeats itself. After dethronement of Mayen Wol Jong and Yel Luol Koor from J-1 on financial scandals, there was hope that J-1 is liberated from all sorts of corrupt cartels. Unfortunately, here arose other bastards in J-1 in persons of Ateny Wek Ateny and Mayiik Deng Ayii.
These dudes are not only administratively corrupt but intellectually bankrupt to serve in the highest office of the land. They erected the wall of lies to block the truth from reaching the president.
They control President’s ears, they determine what to give to the President to hear and what to ignore. They deprive him from hearing the truths from grassroots. Not only that, but they are also depriving him of meeting good people carrying gospel messages. They are destroying him!
Honestly, his office is filled with people attributively incompetent. His office is packed of people that are either unschooled or functionally illiterate. Others are gifted bloviates, introversive, and loquacious people. They are a disgrace to the Presidency in disguise. They are unproductive and unappreciative.
They helped a lot in destroying this man, a man of adjustable coats and characteristically humble. Socially cordial but politically less absolved. That believes in people and trusts them without verification; though he is a strategist, he is not decisive, wise but doesn’t have common sense, a strong leader but doesn’t command. Nevertheless, by his side always is good luck.
A man that forgets more than he remembers, doesn’t evaluate the performance, fails to hire qualified ones, recycles the bad confidants and expects different outcomes. At times, he finds it hard to penetrate through political traps.
His patience and good luck are enormous that his match is rare. That is our President Salva Kiir described in few short sentences.
Like most elders from his ethnic extraction, he over-trusts. In most cases, he sufficed within the circle of his foes. Although his fickle personality has denied him the best description a revolutionist deserves, he still holds a significant respect within the circles of his society.
Despite these great characteristics, he can as well be well described with negative adjectives ordinarily to the considerable displeasure. He is a man who has allowed incoherent aides to encircle him and erected the bulwark to prevent truth from reaching him. In other words, he will be remembered for his love of espousing the gossip mongering.
One such character is the perpetually bragger and eyeless Ateny Wek Ateny, the man in the President’s press room. He is a man with an open-mouth, a holder of a certificate in criminology and criminal justice, who pretends to be a lawyer. To call a spade a spade, this creature is fit for a job of investigator and thus a true suitor for Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in the National Police Service.
He is a barricade to progress in the media sector of the big office. He has done nothing to shine the Presidency in media fraternity. In fact, he struggles to utter suitable English words when addressing the media. He sometimes hire maverick writers to defend the Presidency if the Presidency comes under media attack. He has totally failed the Press office in the Presidency.
Another creature is the freaky Mayiik Ayii Deng who doubles as a functional illiterate. He never graduated from University. Rumor-mongers, and trust tellers have on equal note and in unison accepted that Mayiik Ayii Deng outsource the presidential speeches.
He cannot write a good speech. He cannot piece a significant document. The man is a thick-head. He is always cheesed off. An empty barrel, huge but hollow. Masura!
With their lots of nothingness, they are contributing very much to its downfall. Zilch —–success though they are kept there for decades.
They have projected the President in bad light. With Mayiik Ayii Deng, presidency became the centre for deals. Ateny has turned the Presidency as an honor to brag about. They have never created any positive image for the big man.
Reliably, both men have been alleged to might have failed to even read a page from the two volumes of a book that is a collection of President’s public speeches. Like elsewhere, that book is an independent source of the part of the contemporary history of our liberation struggle. It is a very great book that President can appreciate if he is served with a copy.
Skeptically, they didn’t take a copy of the book to the President to read his well authored biography and a great collection of his own speeches including those he cannot even remember. Had he gotten the book, I believe the President would have sponsored the publication of second edition because there are some errors in the book.
In other words, President Kiir would have called these writers that had volunteered to waste their time, resources and energy to compile the speeches for a ‘thank you’ meeting and handshake.
I bought one copy from the bookshop and it is appealing. It has great collections of the President’s speeches, interviews, articles and letters. These young men deserve appreciation for transcribing videos into scripts. Very hard work, just imagine transcribing ‘BBC Hard Talk’ video into a script!
One may wonder, where on earth would a president be surrounded by people who cannot do research? People who do not have ability to go through the compiled information? It is only in South Sudan!
These people have failed in many aspects. Ateny has never effected the job, instead he has been stammering while inconsistently addressing the media. He loves the cameras that he feeds with falsehood that are indefensible.
It is as well alleged that majority of those in the office of the President depend on magic powers and that their passports would tell you how they frequently visit Nigeria in search for magic powers. President should help himself by booting out all such dysfunctional dead woods.
To conclude, the strength of any leadership is determined by intelligence of closet cohorts. It is pathetic that these cohorts of Kiir in J-1 are worthless. Starting from, perpetually inebriated Tor Deng Mawien, mentally desiccated Gen. Awet Akot, to legally dull Lawerence Korbandi.
Like the semi-illiterate group of Ateny and Mayiik, this group of blue blood people can’t produce anything good for the greatness of this country. With ongoing shrink of the President’s legacy, Kiir must sack them all to save his reputation and claim it back again.
I have my own reservations but a lot can be said.
The writer, Kharubino Kiir Garang, is a political analyst and social commentator on South Sudanese affairs and can be reached at his email: kharubinokiir83@gmail.com
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