South Sudan: How to Rescue a Visionless, Leaderless Nation Heading for Chaos and Oblivion
By Tito Tong, Juba, South Sudan
Sunday, 17 July 2022 (PW) — South Sudan is crying out for leadership. One of the fundamental must-have skills for a leader is the ability to cast a vision and clearly articulate the desired future that he or she wants to take the nation to. This unique ability is what determines if people will be inspired to follow the leader willingly or if the leader will have to coerce and manipulate them into the journey.
The leader must be willing to be held accountable for the process of taking the nation from current reality to this desired future and must be prepared to boldly tackle the constraints that stand in the way of this journey. Some of these constraints might even be deep-rooted historical legacy “demons” that keep rearing their ugly heads to stop the forward momentum.
The decline of the once popular movement in the country Most liberation movement leaders in South Sudan were able to draw most of the people into the vision of fighting for political freedom, and at the time, this was rightly a very compelling vision for millions of people who wanted to see the end of segregation-based political and economic systems in the country.
The challenge is that when this desired future of non-segregation was achieved, most of these leaders could not ‘reinvent’ themselves into leaders who could offer the nation a new sustainable vision that would be compelling enough so that their followers would continue to follow them in the new democratic dispensation.
Some tried to cast a new vision but failed in the implementation because of a lack of practical economic-based experience and, even more importantly, erred by not allowing the process of reconciliation to run its full course to bring balance to the previously segregated population in South Sudan. Sadly, positional leaders who don’t have a compelling vision to influence people will often develop dictatorial control, manipulation, militant, and fear tactics to keep their positional power.
Where there is no vision, the people perish. So, what is the big deal with vision? A biblical quote, “Where there is no vision, the people perish,” best encapsulates why this is a huge issue. We could use this quote to say ‘where there is no vision”. Anarchy will continue in the universities, racial division and mistrust will continue unabated, anger and frustration will continue to grow, and the economy will sputter along and erode the current and future wealth of South Sudan.
Whenever there is no vision to drive a collective people forward, especially when they are coming out of a previously segregated environment, the people will revert to spending most of their time-fighting in the ‘muck’ of the past. A compelling desired future is what empowers diverse people to arise from the “muck” of the past, deal with it, and build platforms that will enable them to forge a path forward to a new future that will benefit all.
So where to now? For a country to move forward, it needs to have a vision that is compelling enough for all segments of its population. That is the only way a country can activate its biggest asset, its people, and get them pulling in the same direction towards a common desired future. When there is a compelling vision that draws people into a new sense of hope, they will each do their bit to contribute towards its attainment, irrespective of their socio-economic position, race, gender, and religion.
Those that willingly buy into a vision will always contribute positively to the process, and those that are coerced will unfortunately always find ways to do as little as possible and selfishly extract as much as possible from the process. So perhaps we need to ask ourselves the question, “is there a compelling common national vision that every South Sudanese is aware of and sold out on?”
A compelling common vision is what brings hope; hope changes behaviour, and changed behaviour enables trust to be built. Trust is an ingredient for unity, and unity takes a nation to new levels of effectiveness and prosperity that have never been achieved before. Vision is a catalyst to inclusive nation-building, but where there is no vision, there is no hope, and where there is no hope, people will be destructive.
In inclusion, let’s dream a little about what it would be like if all political leaders would lay down their own party agendas and call for the various stakeholders in the different spheres of society to come up with an encompassing national vision for the country and a strategic framework for its implementation. This national vision and framework would then be ‘cast in stone as being the roadmap for South Sudan irrespective of who or which political party is in office.
The Author, Tito Tong, holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, and presently pursuing a Master of Business Administration, specialization in Human Resources, at the same academic institution; the author can reach him through (+211920908051 or +211912785339 WhatsApp/ Skype tong.khamisa Email: tongkhamisa446@gmail.com).
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