South Sudanese: Things are looking up BY: Isaiah Abraham, JUBA
AUG. 10/2012, SSN; I have slowly developed fears that our beloved country will ‘die’ if we don’t stop the inferiority, clannish and parochial politics among our society. We have talents, highly educated personalities and strong people, but we lack achievers, and self-motivated leaders. His Excellency the Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny shoes is what am driving you at. You may agree or not, but the man is the right man in our situation. Garang then was one, may his soul rest in eternal peace! Sadly, the majority of our intelligentsia or so-called intellectual classes or leaders are rumor mongers, grumblers, gossipers, idle minded chaps, trouble shooters, political thugs and above all ungrateful and are pretenders. If they can speak good English, and master few things here and there, they go on the moon about who they are. Incentive of education is to change things, for better particularly things to do with life services. Take for example His Excellency the Governor of Eastern Equatoria State, Gen. Louis Lobong Lojore, how he transformed his trouble prone state to more peaceful, prosperous and economic promising state. He used his education to better the living standards of his people. It is not about money alone, as this is the things these days, but rightful use of meager resource to help the people. People are becoming sharper in criticism, yet they are not offering anything as an alternative. Though it is natural to blame anyone or account somebody when anything goes awry, it not fair for our people to start blaming, and stop there without going round the matter as to why the mistake in the first place. Then when we know there is a mistake we providing ammunition to bring people down and then waste on the why, why, why. Tribal inclinations and malice come in, and there you find people recoiling, becoming defensive and offensive. This is a wrong footing for the people of this beautiful land, and indeed if we don’t beat an about turn with that mentality, we will be a failed state. Let’s see the two pressing issues at hand at the moment, economic uncertainties and lack of social amenities. We of course squarely put the blame on the ruling party (the SPLM), the leader of that party and politicians whom we elected to power. Yes they have the moral responsibility to get the blame, but there must reasons why they didn’t deliver. The current economic meltdown for instance has nothing to do with poor economic foresight, but politics, politics imposed on our leaders by our ‘brothers’ from other side of the border, who have decided to bully our country. Our leaders have not choice to say no. We closed oil production so to sort out the quarrel; why should we be bullied like that. This has nothing to do with weakness by anyone. On corruption, the truth is now becoming clearer that there were problems during the establishment of the government due to myriad causes. Even the thing called $4 billions stolen money is refuted, and may not be true. There was money lost but not that much. There were games yes, but the proportion portrayed by outsiders and spoilers was overblown. Corruption isn’t a permanent thing, it is everywhere, and with time, and proper systems in place and then will, we will see it reduced if not gone. But to repeat myself, we must not forget where we came from and how Khartoum has been treating us all through. Harmony, peace and unity have all preoccupied the mind of our leader (Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit). The corruption thing was given no attention on the hope that once we are out of the wood, the government can start cracking whips on criminals. The same situation is awaiting our leadership as things stand. Khartoum factor or risk of people running to Khartoum when they are punished is still high. But still the current leadership has an obligation to balance things to prove their worth of being to power and not gratify their egos alone. Right now they are in disarray; each seemed to have lost focus and is fighting for his/her political life. Some of them are becoming suspicious of the leader and the same is true with the leader- he has lost confidence in most of his comrades. In his next reshuffle, the president must send big wits home, but Oyai, Oath, Majak, Machar, Awut and Changson . But the letter about 75 alleged corrupt officials has compounded matters against the president. His judgment was wrong. You can’t accuse the entire system and still hanging on to power. Now he has no exit strategy after he was misled to go public with the names. This political fiasco will be like others. Unfortunately, his problem won’t go away so long as he relies on others especially his home boys (now becoming buccaneers), leaving behind closest in hierarchy, think tanks, technocrats and nationalists. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) has veered and is in the middle of its ‘home made’ crisis. Who told him the president can substitute the law? Chairman Kiir will be remembered for many blunders. He must prepare his successor before he got humiliated in 2015. The honeymoon ends with the people is in sight, and its time to restock and see how to move forward. Our father Dr. John Garang will not come back from the dead to fix things for us; he has done his part and the challenge is on us to move forward from where he left it. I love that man! But after Garang the SPLM has done tremendous wonders. I challenge them to do more to shame Dr. Traitor (El Hag Paul), who irresponsibly posted series of polemic pieces against the SPLM party, leader Garang, and the Dinka. We must learn to appreciate one of another when we do right, and gently help one another up when we are down. The SPLM-DC (DC) has lost its taste and must be deregistered (if registered) ; it has to be stopped! Southerners don’t behalf badly like that. That party is a mole planted by enemies of South Sudan to destabilize the country. They are threat to our security and unity of our people and therefore are to be booted out if not arrested. We missed that the then government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) was hijacked by people whose preoccupation was to acquire wealth, fame and names. But the leadership then was too busy on the implementation modalities of the agreement (Comprehensive Peace Agreement) and ignored other aspects of security and governance. Time is coming, and is just about to come. Yet on the side of the SPLM they must walk their talk. Too much ado with threats with no action is not acceptable. SPLM is answerable to the people of this country and they must be stand out and be challenged. We have somewhere messed things up, but it is understandable; we did it like any other system in the world, but the DC is playing to the advantage of others. Freedom has limit. That is not freedom of association the constitution talks about but freedom of assassination (assassination of characters). DC has perfected the art of deceit, lying, contempt and abuses, and this is unbecoming. Who doesn’t know that the SPLM is a party to beat? It was led by a revolutionary thinker, serious leader and an achiever, Dr. John Garang de Mabior? After him, the ruling party did great things all around, be it socio-political and institutional, all from nowhere? We have an established government or systems in place, and then democratically we are moving closely there. Economically there are challenges but with time will arrive there. On accountability or good governance, things are getting better -- read Ambassador Stephen Wondu Body (Audit Chamber), National Legislative Assembly and SPLM Secretariat. Soon we shall have checks, and we shall have sound micro and macro-economic practices; we will catch up anyone. Credit must be given where it is due. We may be battling problems at the moment, but things are looking up. Let’s not capitalize on our current challenges to tear down our house, things will just be fine next year. I wanted my friend James Okuk Solomon to abandon Dr. Lam Akol and be with the SPLM. The young man (Dr. James) is constructive and shouldn’t be on a wrong ship. People of South Sudan have no love lost between them and this man. He is a trouble maker and a poor apologist Isaiah Abraham lives in Juba; he’s on [email protected] COMMENTS, PLEASE CLICK HERE Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author(s) and do not represent those of the website. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
