Remembering Kosti Manibe Ngai and his Time
By Atem Yaak Atem
Saturday, 22 August 2026 (PW) — The passing of Kosti Manibe Ngai on August 11, in a Nairobi hospital, Kenya, where he had been admitted several weeks before, is certainly a searing loss not only for his immediate family, but also for the entire South Sudan, a country he served with the diligence of a steadfast patriot he was. Several friends, relatives and former colleagues at various public institutions where he once served in different capacities have written from their firsthand experience that great public figure, and in my capacity as a former colleague in the world of journalism and in government, there is little that will be new to add. The purpose therefore is to confirm effectiveness he was at whatever he was doing and to confirm the statements that have been made public to his humility despite his towering achievements in performing his duties and the admiration he earned from all who came close to him during capacity as a public office holder or as a private citizen. After reading several pieces including a detailed account of Kosti’s style and operation- written by Abraham Diing Akoi Nyuon, the late Kosti’s personal assistant, I feel there is almost nothing new to reveal about this great man South Sudan has lost. However, as a friend former colleague in Journalism and later in government of the independent South Sudan, I will have to touch on some events where the integrity of this great personality who has left us shone like a torch on a mountain peak.
I first came to know Kosti Manibe in April 1975 after the Regional Ministry of Information had assigned me to the Nile Mirror, a Juba-based weekly newspaper owned by the government of autonomous Southern Region. Kosti, a BA degree holder in Geography from Makerere University in Uganda, was practically the deputy editor under Benjamin Warille, a graduate of English language and Philosophy from the University of Khartoum, who was a year my senior. At the time, Kosti was the weekly’s managing editor and was very competent at the job despite the fact that his degree was in Geography, and like me, he had not yet received any training theoretical training, which at the time was judged not to be necessary: in those days the emphasis was that much of the trade was learned on the job most by working under old hands, most of them without degrees in any field.
Unlike Kosti and me, Warille had obtained a diploma in Journalism from the then West Berlin International Institute of Journalism in the then divided German city. We had reporters who included Rufus Taban and Urbano Oyet, a cartoonist who later took on the nickname of Jobo Jobo that earned him a nationwide popularity.
Training at the Khartoum Institute of Mass Communication
In 1976 Kosti Manibe, William Hai Zaza, the late Chaat Paul Nul, the late Chol Kuany and I were nominated by the Regional Ministry of Culture and Information to Khartoum to attend a nine month course in Journalism at the Institute of Communication which had been established by Bona Malwal, then minister of Culture and Information in the central government. There were prominent journalists working with the central government drawn from Radio Omdurman and Sudan Television. One of them was the famous Sudanese radio and TV newsreader, Ayyub Sadiq, who later became the BBC Arabic correspondent in Khartoum before moving to London to become the corporation’s Arabic service newsreader there. Ayyub left the course after attending just two days on the course and moved to London where he briefly became a newsreader on the BBC.
Kosti moved to Sudan Council of Churches in Khartoum
At the end of the course, we returned to Juba, where our arrival within the Regional Ministry of Culture was widely judged as a step forward in the human resource development in the self-governing region that was had the right to claim that it growing qualified human resource entitled it to be given more financial resources within the self-rule perimeters. But unfortunately Kosti soon left to join the Sudan Council of Churches. Most of us who knew his capacity and the contribution he was destined to make within the mass media of Southern Region, felt his departure as to be a loss of a valuable asset in his person; and we as his colleagues were certainly the first losers. I was one of those who felt his departure was going to leave a dent within the ministry.
On return to Juba, Mading de Garang, who happened to hail from Pakuoor village of today Kongor County- is also my home of birth-was planning to launch a government monthly magazine. In those days vices such nepotism were unheard of or seen in public life. The minister was intending to recruit a Kenyan journalist as the editor of the periodical to be called Southern Sudan. Hilary Paul Logali, then minister of Finance and Economic Planning, told Mading that he should give the job to a national instead of a foreigner, and not mincing his words, the minister gave my name to his colleague, which Mading reluctantly accepted.
If Kosti had not left, the surest bet was that he would been the right candidate for the job since the minister was familiar with Kosti’s work ethics and publicly widely acknowledged in public his competence.
There were two main reasons Mading de Garang would have preferred Kosti over me: the first was that it was public knowledge within the ministry and beyond that the minister considered Kosti to be one of the best performers, while the second reason was that the minister and I were born in the same village (in different years apart) in what today is Kongor County of Twi East State. In those days public servants avoided conflict of interest of which nepotism was a leading malpractice that had to be avoided when and by all possible means. Left with no choice as well as the absence of someone with better qualifications than mine at the time in question, the minister gave the job to me- editor of The Southern Sudan monthly magazine.
Sudan Council of Churches
At the outbreak of the Sudan’s second civil war in 1983, the role of the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC), where patriots such as Rev Clement Janda and Kosti Manibe were senior figures with the ecumenical body, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and its military wing, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLM/A) had some of its core members in the organisation that had both moral and material support worldwide- of course operating behind the curtain. The SCS raised both awareness of the objectives the SPLM/A was fighting to achieve: to end domination of Sudan rule, which was based on racial and faith based discrimination and exclusion of non-Muslim and non-Arab citizens.
One day the then Major Deng Alor and the writer of this piece met Rev Clement Janda in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital city, then an important base for the SPLM/A. The man of cloth was bringing financial support was in the US dollars raised by the SCC through the efforts of Kosti and some of his trusted colleagues.
Shortly after the reception of Rev Clement Janda by representatives of the SPLM/A in Addis Ababa represented by Deng Alor, then head of the SPLM in Ethiopia, and in the company of this writer, the visitor who was carrying cash in the US dollars. After the receipt of the amount, our logical question was about the safety they our compatriots involved in raising funds for an organisation that the government of Sudan had branded as outlaws.
Calm he was always known, Clement Janda brushed aside our fears by stating that the risk that could befall them was miniscule in comparison to what the SPLA fighters who he said were constantly living in danger of being killed at the warfront, and who during most of the times were with little or no food at all; suffered mosquito bites; pricked by thorns; exposed to the elements such as rain, heat or cold; snakebite or drowning when crossing streams of a hostile countryside.
After the war was over the South Sudan had become a sovereign nation, Clement Janda explained who provided the material support which he, Kosti and some of their trusted colleagues solicited and received from foreign donors who supported the cause of the Southern Sudanese. To him the main brain behind the follow of financial donations and moral support for the SPLM/A was Kosti. For some of us who has worked and known Kosti before, were not surprised by the leading role in played in the SCC moral and material support for the struggle of the people of what is South Sudan today. In the struggle for the nation of South Sudan there were unsung and unknown heroes to the general public led by the likes of Kosti Manibe. The fact that few among the South Sudanese do not know the patriots who fought by others included was partly because such type of information was ideally classified and protected, but in the case of the role of individuals such as Kosti, their modesty made it almost impossible for the beneficiaries- the general public- to know those who made enormous contributions behind the curtains, not only for their safety but also because they sincerely believed their sacrifices did not publicity.
It was later after the independence of the country that those patriots who operated behind the scene resurfaced. Surprisingly, those who were not in the know about that started asking questions such as: “Where was he during the (armed) struggle?” That question went contrary to what the late SPLM/A leader John Garang often used to tell the fighters at the warfront that there were several forms of struggle which complemented and supplemented each other. Khartoum and its secret cells supporting SPLM/A cause, which included some Northern Sudanese nationals, was another unconventional division. The late Kosti Manibe and most of those operating with the enemy territory were unknown but powerful band that also provide rare and needed information about what could be termed as the internal front.
This is why it became a surprise to some of members of the public when individuals who were not publicly known to be within the top hierarchy of the SPLM/A were courted with respect and a few of them offered senior positions such as Kosti becoming minister of Finance and Economic Planning. After Kosti appointment to that department, one of the journalists who raised that question was told that the war of liberation was not fought only with guns; that there were several ways to contribute to the objectives of struggle for freedom and justice. Kosti and others who did not carry guns during the war made enormous and vital contribution as was the case of the rural population who provided the SPLA fighters with shelter, information about the enemy, food in form of their livestock or medicines, which were channelled to the SPLA soldiers or in the 1960s to Anya Nya who were widely known as freedom fighters.
Cool and savant negotiator
There are so many forms of struggle for justice and freedom. People often take up arms when dialogue fails to resolve national issues as was the case in Sudan. During and even after the end of the armed conflict negotiations between the government in Khartoum and the SPLM/A often took place and the dialogues were mediated by bodies devoted to the promotion of peace among warring parties through dialogue. From the time of Koka Dam Conference in 1986 in Ethiopia between SPLM/A and the political forces in Sudan, dialogue became one of the means the SPLM/A endorsed for resolving the armed conflict. A couple of years later, the SPLM/A took dialogues as one of its means for ending the war with justice.
During dialogue which took weeks and many hours per a day, Kosti Manibe and Deng Alor- just to mention two of the most outstanding negotiators- proved themselves to be among the best negotiators within the SPLM/A team. Their distinguishing characteristic was that none of them could be driven to lose temper regardless of disparaging remarks from the other side, a habit which was common from the delegation from the Government of Khartoum during peace talks. The intention as is widely known, was to provoke the other side so as to lose track during heat-engendered disagreement by a concealed abusive statement, which was not uncommon during heated sessions during which controversial topics such as the then Khartoum’s application of Sharia law to all including non-Muslims Sudanese, were under discussion.
At the helm of Finance
The appointment of Kosti Manibe Ngai as the first minister of Finance and Economic Planning of the new nation in 2011, was one of the most judicious decisions President Salva Kiir and his advisers made. Deng Alor and Nhial Deng were instrumental in the allocation of that vital portfolio to Kosti Manibe. Those who knew Kosti were full of praise for the choice of the man widely known for tested integrity. When the news of his appointment went out, pundits of South Sudan affairs were excited and concluded that the new country had started on the right footing.
On arriving at the ministry he assured the staff that cooperation and consultation would be cornerstone of the administration. Before his appointment to that vital post, I have to deviate a little to give a silhouette of was taking place within that important department, which some bluntly call “the ministry of money.”
The Ministry of Finance before impendence
On my return to Juba a little before independence, I was trying to look for a place to rent. A young person who was working in the Ministry of Finance at a lower level, learned of my search. They came and told me they had a furnished property ready for rent. I went to the building which had four bedrooms and with fine pieces of furniture usually found in home of wealthy people. The owner who had known me while we were in one of the countries in East Africa told me they were happy that I was back home where they said my services were needed.
They told me that since they knew me as someone with no money they would charge me less than the actual amount they would ask from a stranger. But before I went into the business at hand- how much would I pay per a month for the rent- I asked an irrelevant the sensitive and virtually irrelevant question of how they acquired the property that I judged must have cost a lot of money for a young person whose income- mainly salary- was likely to be modest.
To my surprise, the young person opened up with “Uncle- not a blood relative, but using the South Sudanese way in which young people address individuals of similar age with their parents- I can’t hide facts from you. What happens is that in the ministry [of Finance] when a businessman makes a claim for whatever he has done to the government, he will promise to pay ‘something small’ to anyone who has been involved in processing his claim. When the payment is approved and he is paid, he will go around giving some money- ranging from the rank up downwards to everyone who was involved in the process.” Meanwhile I was listening quietly and attentively in my attempt to try to digest the new behaviour which did not exist throughout 1970s when I was working with the press in Juba.
I thanked them for their kindness and told them I would consider their offer. After meeting a friend who was knowledgeable about how such young people were acquiring wealth through illegal means, he told me I should not be surprised. “This is not our time,” by which he was referring to the self-rule for the Southern Region from 1972-1983, when such a behavior was unknown. Interestingly, Kosti was by the time in question was minister of Finance and Economic Planning, while I was deputy at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (a post I later regretted accepting since I never achieved anything as a result of what I can call unjustified sabotage within the ministry. One of those projects was an offer the Kenyan Government made to help South Sudan worth millions of US dollars for training and equipping the ministry with the latest communication gadgets and training at the expense of the Kenyan taxpayers worth millions of US dollars), and which fell under my direct supervision since I signed the agreement with the Kenyan counterpart for the technical assistance worth millions of US dollars. Through open sabotage, the Kenyan team who come to Juba to implement their government programme of updating the equipping TV and training the personnel there- all expenses inclusive the team’s accommodation and feeding in Juba by the Kenyan Government- some individuals within the ministry sabotaged the offer. For five consecutive days, the trainers would go the place where the training would take place, but the staff to be trained had been told not go. After five frustrating days, the Kenyan team led by a lady left Juba for good.
When I told Kosti my frustration with what was happening he advised me to be calm and do what was possible otherwise worrying about the scandal would do nothing to solve the problem facing me at work.
After the dissolution of the government in July through what was known to insiders as an agenda of a former a malicious and ignorant adviser to the government, members of the dissolved cabinet to hold meetings at the SPLM’s headquarters to discuss the role of the ruling party- an agenda that included the dissolution of the cabinet which was attended by nearly all the sacked ministers, who met as members of the SPLM of the ruling party. I did not a single meeting and that explains why I missed the arrest of the former ministers who were falsely accused of plotting a coup against the government. Kosti was one of those were arrested- known as Group of Ten. Although I did not attend any of the meeting it was later construed that the gathering was a plot to overturn the government. The subject of the discussion that led to the arrest of the members was the questions about individuals’- at the time there were two characters known for fabricating stories that tended to mislead the leadership and inimical to democratic practice- usurpation of the role of SPLM as the ruling party. It was that development that what later became known as Group of Ten, former ministers who included Kosti Manibe were falsely accused of plotting a coup and were arrested and detained. After their release, Kosti and some of his colleagues embarked on righting the path the ruling party had taken: emasculation of democratic principles and practices of SPLM as the ruling party.
Several talks aimed at reuniting the leaders within and outside the SPLM successful had the Arusha forum that provided the return to the status quo ante, but the government has not shown its serious commitment to the letter and spirit of the agreement and that is why individuals such the late Kosti Manibe. Have been living outside the country since the outbreak of hostilities between the rival wings of the SPLM, late Kosti fell ill and had an operation in his head. Tragically, he passed away.
As I mentioned early, the passing of Kosti Manibe Ngai, is a loss for his family as well as the entire nation of South Sudan. In stature, Kosti Manibe Ngai can to the great loyal and patriotic South Sudanese of the calibre of Abel Alier, Hilary Paul Logali, Peter Gatkuoth Gual, Natalie Olwak, Isaiah Kulang Mabor, Joseph Oduho, John Garang, Samuel Abu John Kabash, Martin Majier Gai, David Bassiouni, Victoria Yaar Arol, and Yithaya Achol de Dut. The list of and distinguished public servants to which the late Kosti Manibe Ngai belonged is too long to be all listed here.
Our news media has the duty to teach the young generation that South Sudan has always fortunate to have some of the citizens whose ideas and contributions have made its people not only proud of their achievements but also their drive for serving as role models for the young generations in the role of leadership as responsibility based on self-denial and care for other regardless of ethnicity, faith, regional divide, creed, language or dialect, gender, age and other factors that divide families and nations.
To conclude, I would say to my dear friend and former work colleague Kosti Manibe Ngai that his memory will live with us- those who served with or under your wise and temperate and always sacrificing self that you will live in the memories of all those who had the luck to work with you guided by reason, self-denial, generosity and milk of human kindness. May the younger who served with you or knew your generosity, hard work and love of people regardless who they were, follow your footsteps while they are in the service of the people.
Adieu, great friend.
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