South Sudan: Silence On Corruption and Misrule Amounts to Treason

If the above statement  is right  then  most of us should hardly be called  real   Nationalists as there should be  no way  real revolutionaries  and  straight forward citizens could    keep breathing  an air of liberation with their heads deeply  buried in the sand when everything precisely fought for  in the country is  going the wrong way.

Those of us who found themselves in the decision making positions  and are supposed to serve the poverty stricken masses of the underdeveloped  south Sudan nation,  must  clearly know that if it is for any personal reasons that they  are playing intentional ignorance on the plights of the very people by denying them the right to education, health, and  economic liberty, then they  are not worth of being called the children of the land.

Let us not forget that if we choose not to call a spade a spade, then we are definitely signing our own political death warrants in the broad daylight regardless of whether we are political scientists, engineers, economist, lawyers, military men, educationists, or ranking politicians.

It is worth remembering the basic rule that “you can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time “, this old saying though it sounds simple but it reflects a long time human experience which deserves our attention.

When in power we need to be fair, because power never lasts to an individual or any ruling group. Unfortunately the Sudanese people from both the north and the south have chosen to ignore this golden teaching, just to satisfy their immediate greed, yet we all know that it doesn’t need any enrolment at a  rocket science  academy to understand  that there is an end for every day and every night and when each turn is over it is bound to  change.

Those amongst us, who think that they are for nation building,   need to come forward as nationalists and address the immediate issues facing our people in a more acceptable, and achievable manner which can be appreciated by all the stakeholders. However south Sudan is  not yet an independent  nation as such  a lot of a political good will is needed to sell the possible political, social and economic interventions to the people before implementing them, this is especially what is far most needed from those  who claim  that they know it all either because of their political positions and experience  or academic backgrounds because without the blessings of the grass roots, no academically formulated, even though perfectly knitted and supposedly assumed by some elite groups to be waterproof can ever succeed  to   alleviate our poverty and underdevelopment , leave alone cementing  our delicate  unity at its least.

No one can deny the fact that south Sudanese were very poor people even before the two liberation wars,  because the indigenous population was never involved in the explicitly Arab dominated Sudanese economy and unfortunately the only money at the disposal of the southern elite groups is non but the public money  which  they on many occasions tend to misappropriate as if it is their personal wealth.

The north did the same and it is everyone’s knowledge that  the northern elite was  built on  public money as well, be them descendants of Imam al Mahdi , el Mirghani, or el Hindi, just to mention a few. Now the question is whether it is appropriate for the SPLM led government in the south to resort   to the same methods which it fought against without being guilt conscious or risking a broad day light criticism?  The situation on the ground sadly says that the one time liberation movement is now building an elite class in the south using the same corrupt principle of impoverishing the masses for the benefit of its cronies.

On reading this article some people may go ballistic because they want to achieve personal scores based on illegally helping themselves to moneys beyond the average earnings in the entire continent of Africa.

We are very corrupt and very opportunistic and the best amongst us who   flourish well at the moment are those who are frankly nepotistic. This, in any way, is not    an   example of a good leadership nor does it portray  a good citizenship.

If anybody in Juba who knows  of public mismanagements, or  any  person involved in corruption as an individual or in association  with  gangsters,  in regardless of theirs  ethnic,  political or social standing  and  yet prefer to keep  quite for fear of losing  their posts, they are  not only  elongating the miseries of our  disadvantaged people  on the ground, but are  indeed a  disgrace even to the mothers  who gave birth to them , and to those who invested in them  and worse still to those who taught them the basics  of  how to read and write.

I  for one   promise  the whole of the south Sudan and God above, that I will diligently work to exposé whatsoever I  think is anti-the basics of un an equal citizenship  from wherever I am.

I would be very happy if all the readers of this article could give a go on this central question : Why do some of us think that they are entitled to the whole cake, to the extend that, they give themselves the unilateral rights to disharmonise the very communal fabric of a nation yet to see light.

All those dear  bloods shed in the struggle over the five  decades  long liberation wars , are crying out and the sooner we strike a national deal to save the south, the better we would proceed forward as a nation. All the self proclaimed politicians must come to the immediate understanding that the fabric of the south Sudanese integrity is now exposed to time based degeneration. Only fairness and transparency and good governance can save us from our inevitable demise.

We are by citizenship expected to criticize each other whether as individuals, communities, ethnical groups, or tribes, whenever anything goes wrong. There is no need any longer to bury our heads in the sand when a few greedy individuals because of their sick and endless quest for power and illegal wealth are  left to devour the  whole nation.

I will never be upset by any one who criticizes me for any of   my writings as it is my core belief that we can only correct our mistakes through frank debates and dialogues. Please let us all rise to the same level of openness and promote open debate on our political short comings.

I am aware of the fact that some fellow southerners may assume that I am getting it wrong when I use the media to point out some of the reckless behaviours happening in places like the border town of Nimule. First of all I am not even from Nimule to start with, and my ancestral land is hundreds of miles away  to the furthest  south western part of  south Sudan, but my basic intension is to stress that justice  should prevail  whenever lives  are being threatened or   lost.  I for one want the situation contained before all the other neighbouring communities go on the rampage as it is the case now in the next door D.R Congo.

With such  un predictable nasty developments previously witnessed  in Rwanda and now in the D.R. Congo,  all those  who love their country should  do all that it takes to avoid these catastrophes  from  repeating itself in south Sudan  , yet these things do   commonly happen  in Africa.

My final advice to all  the south  Sudanese people is to stop discriminating on ethnical basis, no more cattle rustling, no more land grabbing by the so – called internally displaced people ( IDPs) , no more tribal dominance in running the normal everyday affairs  in  south Sudan , and no more politically motivated bullying , and  for that matter no more bulling of any kind should be allowed as we move towards the zero tolerance on corruption.

The author is a south Sudanese doctor living in the UK, and can be reached at