Eulogy in Celebration of the Exemplary Life of Elder Agei Dut Aguet (1948 – 2021)
Time to recognize you as our father, family man, humanist, civil servant, civilians’ leader and an elder in the Roman Catholic Church, Sudan and South Sudan; may the Good Lord rest you eternally, amen.
By Dut Augustino Agei, Nairobi, Kenya
Saturday, February 12, 2022 (PW) — On Friday, 08 October 2021, around 6 pm Sudan local time, there was news all over South Sudan about our father death (1948-2021). The Friday of the year 2021 was sad for me, naturally. I can remember after my arrival to class five minutes late for the reason of following up news about my father’s conditions at home with family members.
I remember getting to answer a few questions from the professor upon calling me twice, and more since they were all left unanswered, and he decided to move on without returning, and I deserved to miss the present. Our family members were meeting while we were following them online, figuring out what to do about father’s conditions that were so fragile and unpredictable.
The incoming messages from extended family members online and through phones were extremely demoralising. He was struggling to live and was only under the support of oxygen, and were any emergency referral to be made, he might risk losing his life entirely in the process. He was surrounded in silence by his family members.
Saddened enough, he wasn’t able to be spoken to on the phone by us outside the country and by people of goodwill who were left with messages of prayers and quick recovery from all over South Sudan and far flank places. The rest of my brothers who were beside him saw him breathing once, once and our beloved father passed on slowly in the evening hours of Friday eighth October 2021. Some of his children outside the country, of whom I was one, were denied the father’s news until Saturday morning the following day, when the news was keenly broken to us and the rest of the people. The whole of that week in October and the whole year were later on very sad indeed and unforgettable to me and the family circles.
Agei Dut Aguet was born after the Second World War in the current Tonj South County of Jak Payam, rural Manyiel Agei village, Warrap State, South Sudan. According to the different narratives in the area, he was the son of parents that were considered the first Roman Catholic Christians. My father’s diary reads that both George Dut and Mary Akech were the first to be baptized and converted into the Catholic faith by missionaries that were said to be the first evangelists in Busere, southeast of the Tonj town area. After the passing of educator George Dut a century later, junior Agei Dut drew another line of getting to be educated by a similar Catholic priest in the emulations of his outgoing father, who was a Christian in the area. Junior Agei Dut was educated with his three (3) sisters on how to read and write Dinka translations into English and eventually the gospel readings in vernacular.
After elementary education, he decided to take on the heir chieftaincy, something he later changed his mind over and changed into a balancing act between the family line of the sultanate and modernity. He grew up decisively with different worldviews of wanting to be a civilian leader, a position he later endorsed by virtue of being morally upright educated and, above all, a humanist in relation to the perspective of the mission schools and church position in southern Tonj. From his childhood inspirations, he wanted a modern system of leadership, something that came to him naturally upon getting appointed to the Bar-el-Gazel union chairpersonship.
According to his peers, the time elder Agei Dut unified Bar-el-gazel by the power of words and a message of peace through judicial processes in volatile situations where cattle rustling was the order of the years between his tribemates and outsiders. He was said to shall have favour outsiders than his tribe men in different settlement of conflicts situations. He furthered this by encouraging mediation efforts between rural administrators and the British rules in the area. Elder Agei Dut encourages the system of peace mediation or justice to be done instead of violent and revenge tact. He was praised in the elevations of human development for promoting the cultural system of Christianity, educational civilisation, agriculture development, and village urbanisation through proper road networks and a better healthcare system in rural areas.
After the independence of South Sudan from Sudan, through CPA Kenya, the leadership of the new Sudan Council of Churches missions of a peace deal at the grassroots consulted his capability of peace and reconciliation implementation. He was appointed to the judicial position as the county judge, which was later upgraded into a position in the state legislative assembly, representing Tonj South as an area MP until he retired in 2015. Since he was a Christian, he retired from all civil servant positions into the voluntary duty of Tonj community leadership as well as advisory work in diocesan missions of peace in the area. He simply likes the Gospel of Mathew in peace sustainability & verse six said, “God promises beauty of human persons to Him than any other 24.” Elder Agei Dut died in office as a community leader, something we family members are grateful to the people of Tonj for having his position remain unoccupied up to date in respect of the man whom they considered to have all done well for them.
Elder Agei Dut was not a blessing to the area alone but to the rest of the regions of South Sudan as a country. The family of Arol Kacuol in Kenya eulogizes him for the executive work he had done in the area before when he was their first leader when the country was Sudan. There was praise for the balancing between social ramifications and positions of local governance. Simply, he was a good man, according to the Lake State, South Sudan.
After the Sudanese conflict, Sudan was ruled by Bishop Rudolf Deng Majak and the southern regions were under Bishop Caesar Mazzolari. Both men praised the elder Agei Dut for his peace efforts. At one of the Tonj gatherings at St. Mary’s Catholic, Diocese of Wau, Bishop Rudolf Deng expresses his solidarity for peace in the Catholic Church, using the elderly Agei as an example. In popular opinion, Chief Majak Akot Bol expressed the goods of the man on several occasions. At that time, they were safe in the county and justices were freely given and one man, Elder Agei Dut, on every Sunday, said, “Mama Ayen Parek Machar said she was a classmate of elder Agei Dut and since the duos were good friends, she listened to him” in leaving her education to marry SANU leader William Deng back then, she went ahead and did it.” One of the UN agencies in Warrap State describes aged Agei Dut as a tactful leader of peace at one of the conferences convened in the Tonj area in 2014. Sudan Tribune online editions praise his humane ways of dispute settlement in the decade of conflict in the area upon the press release of violent condemnations in circa 2015.
The evidence of turning up of people in funeral prayers that was done in Juba by Tonj people before burial in the village demonstrated the likes of the man by his fellow countrymen. The function was attained overwhelmingly regardless of health ministry directives within the trusts that none would fall away in paying tribute to elder Agei Dut. A week after the official passing of the late Agei Dut, social media commentaries were uncontrollable in their expressions of the man they loved so much. In his condolence messages, Tonj community secretary and former governor of Warrap state, Louis Anei Madut Kueidit expressed his condolences messages to the man in writing and in speech. Finally, different people from different walks of life pay their last tribute to elder Agei Dut in persons at rural Manyiel Agei village in the final burial ceremony. Elderly he used to be greeted while standing using the nickname of either bany Agei Mathordit or simply honourable Agei Dut respect he never passed on to his children albeit.
In conclusion, the family at the individual opinions requested Tonj community to elect their leader. After the pass of a leader people cannot live long without a leader a law. Prayers are that may the missing of elder Agei Dut in the world never causes divisions and it should be a point of unity itself. Leaders come and go, and the place remains the way suppose to be. Those who interact with him individually shed tears in the news of seeing the man on a journey of no returns. Different opinions at prayer functions in Juba express wishes of anything they would have done differently in reversing his life on earth. Fortunately, it was only done by God. Without exaggerations elder, Agei Dut uses to be loved even by people who knew nothing about him and his whereabouts. The Department of Diplomacy and International Studies at the University of Nairobi loves to cite the elderly Agei Dut in moderations of classes more than any other name in the registry. Similar situations occur at the faculty of international studies at US University Africa Nairobi, where graduation name-calling prepares the elderly Agei Dut surname instead of the other way around.
He was a leader of prayers, a man of peace and an adapter of Christianity. In the words of the sage, good people never die completely in the world. The God who gives life reverses the legacy of children who, at some points, surpassed the resting soul so dearly. Before going for retirement eight years ago, his community leadership position was vied for by one of his sons in Kenya, who ruled as opposed for eight years. Elder Agei Dut loves God in all situations of life, be it good or not. He consults God in decision making and gives thanks to him for the outcomes still. After visionaries of elderly knowledge of him not going to live longer than last year, he will be taken to rural Manyiel Agei village for burial next to his mother, Mary Akech, and George Dut, whom he named more than enough children, and whom the relatives consider to be the architect of good people that are in present-day Jak Payam, Manyiel Agei village. “Therefore the prayers” eternal grant unto him, Almighty God, and let your perpetual light shine upon him and may he rest in peace amen.”
Dut Augustino Agei is a former Tonj Youth leader as well as the Administrator of the upcoming online website South Sudan foreign relations politics and diplomacy, fellow at Oslo University, Norwegians institute of peace studies and public laws. He can be reached via his email address: dutagostino@yahoo.com
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