What South Sudanese People Expect from President Kiir and FVP Taban Deng in 2018
7 min readBy Winnie Nyiwer Majok, Kampala, Uganda
January 2, 2018 (SSB) — As we are stepping into 2018, every South Sudanese ‘s wish for a new year is for the President Salva Kiir and his First Vice President Gen. Stephen Taban to change their current political stance on this ongoing crisis and bring a genuine peace to this country in 2018. There is no doubt that these two individuals behold the future of over 10 million South Sudanese.
They are in charge of our death files. In their book, there is the time when we can die and when to live, what will kill us and what will make us live, how to die and how to live. They hold our country’s political heartbeat and our kismet more than any other SPLM politicians.
Therefore, it is squarely upon them to continue holding onto their current political philosophy (we are better off without them) while despising other factions of SPLM and let the situation continues unabated or change their philosophy and salvage the country from a total prostration and save the few remaining lives.
One year has gone now and sadly the country still sits in uncertainty since the invention of what I can correctly term as “the pyramid theorem”. The pyramid I mean is made up of four sides, Gen. Taban, Hon. Ezekiel Lol, Dr. Dhieu Mathok and Gen. Lado Gore. In their invented excogitated arithmetic pyramid theorem of bringing peace, we were made to believe that this barbecue invented theorem in Crown Hotel will bring everlasting peace.
The pyramid theorem postulates “substituting Riek Machar with Gen. Taban Deng plus Ezekiel Lol minus Pagan Amum multiply by President Kiir all over the Compromised Peace Agreement equals everlasting peace”
Unfortunately, it is Welei, it equals more suffering and death. Even though we try to apply the BODMAS rule and use the scientific calculator, it is still the same. In other words, this trial and error arithmetic pyramid theorem of bringing peace has spectacularly failed and it would be good if our leaders can modify it in a good faith so that it brings everlasting peace.
Methinks that it is not sacrilege to say that South Sudan lacks purposeful political elites. Purposeful elites define the national interest and national conscience of any country. There is no single country that can be great without purposeful elites. Visibly, our elites are only interested in their self-preservation.
Their fight is always caused by leadership wrangling over who can eat what. Not by differences in political ideologies on how to run the country. All these factions of SPLM don’t have any clear vision for this country. To put it plainly, the politics of Bothon gebel Wathom (belly before nation) has outshone the politics of national interest and service delivery.
Nothing illustrates the ideological bankruptcy of our elites then the lack of convincing articulation on how President Kiir and FVP Gen. Taban can bring everlasting peace. Their brigades can’t give the country any clear work plan.
In the same vein, the discombobulated Dr. Riek suffers from mental impuissance of enunciating political ideas. He can’t articulate any reason to buy the brain of South Sudanese why he is the best man to be given the residency of J1. His incoherent gist is always that Kiir has done nothing good during the whole interim periods and hence he must handover the power to him.
To give his argument some weights, he claims that he is the left-handed and handsome Nuer politician with gaps in the teeth who was prophesied by prophet Ngundeng to rule South Sudan. He brags to have divine powers of Ngundeng and they can guide him to provide the best supernatural political leadership to this country.
The habitually dipsomaniac Pagan Amum and his group have also glaringly failed to articulate their reasons for wanting President Kiir to go. Pagan has totally forgotten that South Sudan was not a humanitarian donation from the UN and TROIKA. But insolently busy lobbying the UNSC in Washington for South Sudan to be placed under UN trusteeship for ten years. What will benefit him and his group in UN trusteeship is something for us all to guess.
The so-called Nyandeng Garang is also unwittingly being held hostage by her wild belief that the leadership is sexually transmitted skill and hence she stands the best chance to provide the good leadership of her late husband to this country.
For our elites, politics is the full belly thesis. And they can do whatever it takes them to get shares in the national cake and fill their bellies by all means. They are all mentally impotent to articulate any single living reason for wanting the country’s top job. The erudite aphorism of Mr. Alexander Eichener, “for a hyena, a bone is just a bone; no matter whether it lies in the bush, or in the vegetable garden of Mzungu.
It is still a bone” accurately explains the anserine belief of our politicians for positions. They are determined to fill their bellies by default, no shame feeling! Take it to the bank; some politicians can even kill over 1000 innocent people in a single day so that they can be conciliated with positions in the government. These are what we called the ‘SPLM elites of South Sudan’, very pathetic!
To take Hon. Akol Paul by his words, “SPLM is intertwined with South Sudanese and therefore when it coughs, the whole nation contracts political influenza”. Therefore, if this is how the SPLM is intertwined with the people, then it is safe to say that the SPLM didn’t only cough but has farted very toxic gas which has drifted thousands of South Sudanese into UNMISS camps, Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya refugee camps, and equally killed thousands.
Is it not a right time for SPLM now to see the doctor and treat itself to cease coughing and farting so that the few remaining lives of South Sudanese are saved?
Because of you (SPLM elites), the past five years have been extremely more difficult on several accounts. We have seen the skyrocketing of foodstuffs in the shops, and at some point in this Christmas and New Year celebrations, we have had difficult choices to make between buying 10 Kg of Maize flour for the family meal or buy second-hand clothes for kids, but never both. We lost our fathers, mothers and siblings not only in the war but some were starved to death.
We have lost jobs because companies and NGOs have left South Sudan because of insecurity. Some companies and NGOs have scaled down their workforces. Our children have dropped out from schools because the parents couldn’t afford to pay their tuition fees. Some families broke up because of this economic hardship. Our currency has lost its value due to inflation. Government employees can spend up to three months without salaries.
Reportedly, some SPLA soldiers hung themselves because their salaries can’t buy 5 KG of maize flour and 2 KG of beans for their families. Tribalism has littered in every government’s departments and private sectors. Ethnicity has become the ticket for employment; Deng can’t be employed in the department headed by Lado, Adwok can’t be promoted to the office headed by Gatkuoth and vice versa. Our children are starving with degree certificates.
Do you hear and understand these tales Mr. President? Can you and your FVP Gen. Taban scratch your heads and recall the cause of our struggle for this country by making 2018 the year of a genuine peace? Can you and your FVP Gen. Taban make this year the beginning of your good legacy years?
Are you still patriots with your FVP Gen. Taban like before CPA to return this country to its unstrained shape and form? Can you and your FVP Gen. Taban swallow your pride and call all your colleagues in SPLM-IO and SPLM-FD and lock yourselves in any room in SPLM House and agree on who can eat what and bring peace to us?
I assure you sirs, the country needs peace and no one will dare to question what the hell you are doing with the country’s resources as long there is peace. Millions of South Sudanese have endured this economic hardship and war for the whole of 2017 hoping that the ‘pyramid theorem’ will produce something tangible that will derogate our sufferings. Woefully, nothing has changed.
In conclusion, in 2018, many South Sudanese expect much from president Kiir and his First Vice President Gen. Stephen Taban. If either of them has the smidgeon of the belief that this is not the country that they fought for twenty-one (21) years and cost 1.2 million of lives, we expect them to change their current political stance and make 2018 the year of permanent peace.
The author is a South Sudanese student studying in Uganda and can be reached via winnienyiwer@gmail.com
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