The Dangerous Mirage of “Taking Town to the People”: When Bomas Become Battlefields in South Sudan.
By PaanLuel Wël, Juba, South Sudan
Wednesday, 06 May 2026 (PW) — The fresh administrative order by the Deputy Governor of Jonglei State, H.E. Wilson Awuol Gaajang Awuol, suspending the establishment and inauguration of new Bomas across Jonglei State, exposes a painful contradiction at the heart of the SPLM/SPLA’s long-celebrated policy of “taking town to the people.” That policy was once presented as one of the most noble promises of the liberation struggle.
“Taking town to the people” was the embodiment of the SPLM/SPLA’s strategic commitment to decentralisation, rural development, local empowerment, and the delivery of government services to communities long neglected by distant colonial and post-colonial administrations in the Sudan. In theory, creating counties, payams, bomas, and local administrative units was meant to bring roads, schools, clinics, justice, security, markets, and accountable governance closer to the ordinary citizen.
In practice, however, the policy has too often degenerated into something very different in Salva Kiir’s South Sudan. Instead of taking services to the people, the state has sometimes taken disputes, flags, titles, rivalries, and political competition to the people. Instead of administrative units becoming centres of development, they have become new frontlines of communal contestation.
The tragic clashes in Kolnyang Payam over the disputed establishment of Malual-chat Boma between the Abang and Thany communities in Bor County are a stark reminder that administrative creation without social consensus, proper consultation, historical sensitivity, and conflict-resolution mechanisms can easily turn governance into grievance.
The suspension order is therefore not just a bureaucratic pause but rather an admission that the “taking town to the people” policy has hit a dangerous roadblock. In Jonglei State as across the country, the deeper problem is that South Sudan’s administrative expansion has often been driven more by elite politics than by genuine development planning.
Communities are promised recognition, chiefs are inaugurated, boundaries are drawn, and local titles are distributed, yet the basic foundations of peaceful and prosperous governance remain weak. There are no reliable land registries, no credible boundary commissions with public legitimacy, no neutral dispute-resolution processes, and no serious delivery of services to justify the proliferation of administrative units.
A Boma or Payam without a school, a clinic, a road, clean water, security, and livelihood opportunities is not “town taken to the people” but rather a mere name on paper. Worse still, when that name is attached to land, identity, history, and political recognition, it can become a trigger for deadly communal violence and endless revenge killings.
The case in Jonglei state also reveals the unresolved tension between traditional authority and modern state administration. Chieftaincy in South Sudan is hardly ceremonial as it is tied to land, lineage, status, customary courts, taxation, representation, and local legitimacy. Therefore, the creation or inauguration of a new Boma, Payam or chief cannot be treated as a simple administrative exercise since it touches the soul of community identity. When handled carelessly, it can awaken old unresolved disputes and create brand new ones.
The tragedy of Malual-chat Boma in Bor County should therefore be treated as a serious warning, not an isolated incident. Jonglei State has already endured decades of communal violence, cattle raiding, displacement, revenge attacks, political manipulation, and land-related tensions. To add poorly managed administrative restructuring into this volatile environment is to pour fuel on dry Savanna grass.
If “taking town to the people” is to mean anything beyond political slogan, the government must return to its original promise. It must mean taking services to the people, not just creating new administrative labels. It must mean taking justice to the people, not exporting confusion. It must mean taking peace to the people, not inaugurating disputes. It must mean taking development to the people, not multiplying offices without resources.
The suspension of new Bomas and chieftaincies in Jonglei State is therefore a necessary but incomplete step in the right direction. It may stop immediate escalation, but it does not solve the underlying problem. What is needed is a transparent review of all disputed Boma creations, proper consultation with affected communities, credible mediation between Abang and Thany communities, and a broader state policy on land, boundaries, customary authority, and local administration.
The SPLM/SPLA policy of “taking town to the people” is failing precisely because decentralisation without development, consultation, justice, and peace becomes a dangerous mirage. A government cannot simply divide land and people on paper and call it governance. True governance begins when people feel involved, protected, heard, served, and respected.
Until then, “taking town to the people” will remain a beautiful slogan betrayed by ugly realities on the ground in Salva Kiir’s South Sudan.
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