The highly charged South Sudan National Youth Union (SSNYU) election in Juba
By Pal Chol Nyan, Juba, South Sudan
Wednesday, December 11, 2019 (PW) — The delegates to the SSNYU Convention cast their votes today to elect their new leader. Boyoi Gola won in an undisputed landslide victory without a lot of energy exerted; that is what we are hearing at tea-places.
The processes leading to the election of Boyoi Gola as the President of the Union seems not to have satisfied the some of the Youth especially those supporting the candidates who stepped down. That it wasn’t going to be credible and fair filled the social media days before the official votes casting.
At the eleventh hour, two of the most popular candidates stepped down purportedly under duress according to what I read on the social media in favour of the candidate considered the choice of the government and associates.
This simple exercise is beating my friends. They don’t know that it always works that way. South Sudan is not an Island in the region of Horn of Africa and neither is it on another planet.
Those who say or think so are playing to the gallery. This is Africa. It has got to reach your eardrums. Do what they like or do; or go and they will pursue you to the end.
I had an informal chat with two of my younger friends and brothers somewhere months before the kick-start of the election and when the campaign was ongoing. Each of the two young lads was having a candidate to support.
I told them, really predicted that, young men! , I know how it works in Africa, the choice of the ruling Party is always the one coming. Gola would make it. I didn’t talk to anybody about.
They asked me how it would happen. I answered them that it would come to pass. I came from a school of thought where such things happen.
Now that Gola won, my friends have something to believe and to learn from our previous discussion. They will live to remember what I told them.
My opinion is that, the Youth leader has been, say elected or installed, by the government and as people who support the government, there is no choice but to give it a blessing and a big applause from the bottom of your heart.
For those who feel dissatisfied and think the election was rigged, the assumption or proof is close to it; you have an option of lying low or otherwise. The dice is cast.
Boyoi Gola is now the President-elect of South Sudan National Youth Union, willy-nilly.