Piece of Advice to Hon. Bona Panek Biar, the New Governor of Warrap State, South Sudan

By Zechariah Makuach Maror, Juba, South Sudan

Tuesday, June 30, 2020 (PW) — What my advice infers here is that people are not always as diligent as they say they are in a way that they check the information they receive, and it is certainly the case that when people feel threatened, frightened or had wrong perception aboutthe source of the information, they may not understand the solidness of the information.

Sometimes they are less likely to check information before they stir it into their plans, or react to it, the newly appointed Governor of Warrap state is not exception of that, it’s his personal rights to either take or leaves my advice but I prefer he should take it since it is for free, in South Sudan “nothing good as free thing”.  

The condition in which my state is in now compelled me to make this piece, I’m certainly optimistic that this is not the time for advices but a time of who should be given what and which position, I mean to say this time is for the lobby, which is not of course the main reason for establishment of the government. 

My little knowledge about the basic existence of the government is that, the government should be the governments that preserve lives, and to conserve lives means provision of security and other basic services that necessitate people’s being.

The root causes of conflict between either farmers with herders, herders with herders or other drivers of inter-communal and mutual extremist violence in Warrap State must be urgently dealt with in a holistic manner to stop rising instability in Warrap State. 

Government organized crime such as lending civilians guns in the form of so-called community policing which make community politically semi-autonomous must thwart, preferably professional trained harmonious State Police should be reconstituted, professional Army must be deployed along State periphery to shield out none domestic State aggressors. 

Doing so will help in the management of political crisis because inter-communal violence can easily intertwine if political interests are granted the chance to ruin. The emphasis should be that the motorists of violence among local communities must beaddressed in a holistic manner. 

The individual characteristics of clan extremism, community socio-political hegemony by local janitors, and inter-communal driven violence must not be ignored as overlooked by the previous tiny political structures that had assumed the throne of political scene in last few years of nonsensical division.

Common causes of inter-communal conflicts found by many researchers in the area were poverty, revenge attacks, illiteracy, high dowries and insecurity which in many cases culminated in a prestigious demonstration of young one’s manhood. 

The consequences included loss of lives and properties, displacement, instability, exploitation of youth, restriction of movement and insecurity that result in severe hunger and malnutrition.

Possible solutions offered were enlightenment and peace awareness programs, promoting peace and stability through dialogue, peace education and sports, inter-community cultural events, religious activities, laws to govern marriage system, reduced illiteracy, development programs and all these will not happen if a leader doesn’t support or enforced rule of law in respect to human right. 

Consideration of fresh University graduates as part of the logical pursuant of development policies should take supremacy in local administration, this means that by using these approaches local actors can add value to economic development and social policies designed and implemented by the people who got socialized with wider civilized ideas.

The mobilization of local actors through local development initiatives helps to generate additional proposals for action and resources and competencies to help achieve them. Embrace local development policies that sound-minded people enable local actors to act as catalysts for development and draw on the ideas, energy and commitment of local people. 

Local awareness of needs and opportunities and local involvement in strategy development helps to tailor policy solutions towards the distinct requirements of each area and provides feedback on the effectiveness of the actions that are undertaken. Thus local development policies adapt responses to local need.

Ideally navigated local development structures provide a forum for an integrated approach to policy delivery in which various instruments and funding streams are combined for maximum effectiveness. This can lead to better coordination of policy, which is important given the multiple causes of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion in most of our isolated local neighborhoods.

Most of the former governor failed because they werehandpicked by so-called experience politicians, spoon-fed them with an outdated ideas thus act to underestimate the ideas and ability of young energetic people who own technology and tools of tidings automation of 21st century wisdoms.

This traditional hypothesis of selection should be push aside paving the way for brilliant ideas to reign with no restrictions on age factor, I mean age and loyalty should not be used as a tool of measuring capacities and capabilities of the people to run the office. We need to be careful about using age and loyalty factors as measurement of getting potential leaders.

Good luck Hon. Bona Panek Biar!

The Writer is Secretary General of Warrap State Intellectuals’ Organization for Peace and Advocacy (WASIO) and could be reached via zechariahmakuach25@gmail.com or zeemakuach@hotmail.com

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