Why We Should Celebrate the Resolution of the Council of the Ministers on the Dredging of Nile Rivers and Sudd Wetlands in South Sudan
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Welcoming of the Resolution of the Council of the Ministers on Dredging Discourse as was Announced on 18th October 21, 2022, by the Minister of Information, Hon. Michael Makwei Lueth, the Republic of South Sudan
By Thomas Gatdel Malou, Nairobi, Kenya
Friday, October 21, 2022 (PW) — Fellow compatriots, the populace of the Republic of South Sudan, it is with great joy and thanks to having reached this month while alive, and more so, I would like to bring to your keen attention the public view of our nation on the hydrological, atmospheric, environmental, and climatic change angles which form our social fabric. I grasp that most of you received my iota that jotted a few points in regard to the dredging issues caused by environmental well-wishers in and outside our nascent nation of South Sudan.
Thus, it is your second chance to snatch this privilege by either reading this essay or perusing all the documents I wrote pertinent to hydrology, the environment, and things relating to climate change and environmental conservation. For a matter of clarity, let me give a bit of biblical right given to the nature of our today’s subject, and it says: Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant and everything in them; and let all the trees sing for joy. Psalm 96:11–12.
Therefore, the eerie environment is making me take this form. I have no father, no mother, I have not even been taken to an orphanage, and I have no protector. I have no leader in championing my conservation and no tribes. And I have no technology to block my users. Still, I have my general with no portfolio but a vast knowledge of who and where I am.
Once again, welcome to the school of life (environment), where we work with sympathy and volunteer protection. The payment for this is thereafter manifested through God’s happiness and forgiveness towards the man. Most of you will pose questions like, “How can environmental protection, conservation, and management bring forgiveness?” The answer is explicit and self-explanatorily. Revelation 11:18 says, “The nations raged, but your wrath came, and the dead would be judged and rewarded by your servants, the prophets, saints, and those who fear your name; both minor and significant shall be awarded for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”
It is incumbent on you, my fellow citizens, to be my choir or the choirs of H. E. Salva Kiir Mayardit, Dr Riek Machar, Gen. Taban Deng Gai, and Prof. John Akech, depending on who says what about our nature. To Prof. John Akech, I beg you to revamp the University of Juba to make it a premier university with modern hostels, learning facilities, serious research centres, and scholarships to the East African community’s member states. This is one way of advertising our oldest university, which is almost in Eastern Africa.
I always disagreed with your statements regarding environmental issues and the dredging of rivers, which has recently been politically turned into the clearing of waterways. I respect your professorship and consider you my colleague in academia. At the same time, I advise you to halt commenting on these dredging initiatives as your war against them is wrongly placed and might open Pandora’s box for your job. My people and my learned comrade Prof. John Akech are on the verge of environmental collapse if we don’t want to hurriedly clear or dredge rivers, my people and my learned comrade Prof. John Akech.
My South Sudanese, I know you easily forget people, but I urge all of you to dare not to forget me for this quest. I am doing this to ensure that the petroleum I have never had a bit of on its money as a peasant farmer’s son exists for you and your grandchildren. The human footprints in South Sudan are now reaching a humongous stage, and we need to keep a vigil on this matter.
For those who don’t know what the environment comprises, this is your best chance to read between the lines. The environment consists of the natural and biological environment. Under this is the atmosphere, the pedo-sphere, and the hydrosphere, which dominate our discourse. BIOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT This category includes flora (animals), flora (plants), and organisms (small species). Besides, we have a human environment, which is also the leading cause of our debate. Just to touch on a few aspects.
In conclusion, I here to resubmit my YES for dredging the rivers as soon as possible; our people are inundated by the water and clearing the rivers may ease the movement of the water to the lowland areas of South Sudan, not necessarily Egypt as all of you think. On a separate note, I would like to challenge the minister for petroleum, Hon. Puot Kang to stop lip service per se environmentally. If I may ask, Hon. Puot Kang, do you have an environmental adviser, or is the word “Environmental Impact Assessment” fashionable and new to you?
If these questions are yes for you, wake up and form a consortium with the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Electricity Dams and Bridges, Ministry of Water, and Ministry of Mining. It does not need President Kiir’s decree to implement environmental guidelines in place in this cluster and implement them in the letter and spirit. It does not need to lobby Malaysians, Chinese, or any other nationals to have this initiative. Now that I have given rich ideas for free, I am surprised that all of you are too lazy to implement this when you have veto powers and funds.
None of the South Sudanese officials can give me the exact biocapacity of South Sudan occupied and the one that remains unoccupied. I opine and expect all of you to know this for the purposes of measuring the incorporation of the sustainable development goals plans. So, to some extent, your claim about EIA is correct. Hon. Minister for Petroleum comes to me, or I termed this “political mercy,” the psyche of saying that I am up to the task of many chest beatings and that I am going to do it, unlike my erstwhile predecessors.
All You should jointly do as the consortium is to lay down tenets that are not violated by anyone who wants to pioneer an operation depending on environmental pollution magnitudes and hire Environmental research experts or even create an environmental internship researcher if payment is a problem in this case.
With all of this, we can rest assured that the women we marry in freedom hall and the slay queens we impregnate without fathering children will have their future children saved. We will be forced to say goodbye to Sudan’s petroleum and other resources if we do not heed this advice.
The author, Tom Gatdel Malou, is a concerned South Sudanese Student at the University of Nairobi, Master of Arts in Environmental Planning and Management (EPM), Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Department of Geography, population, and Environmental Studies, who can be reached at: gatdelmalou@students.uonbi.ac.ke, or mobile: +254717895916
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