A veteran public intellectual and politician has called on South Sudanese leaders to prioritize service delivery to people rather than being obstructed by trappings of power.
“Our situation of today is about power struggle, people split for the issue of power, somebody told me some few days ago that we have over 70 political parties both registered and unregistered, this issue of parties came as a result of IGAD peacemaking process in South Sudan which put power as a solution to our problems,” Peter Adwok Nyaba said during the memorial prayers for the late veteran politician Joseph Ukel Abango in Juba on Saturday.
Adwok said that bitter political wrangles are never a solution to South Sudan’s problems that include poverty and illiteracy.
“The issue of power-sharing divided our people and they turned to kill each other, this is one of the biggest disadvantages that IGAD did to the people of South Sudan, while we are fighting ourselves IGAD thought that the solution to this fighting was power-sharing and power-sharing doesn’t solve this at all,” he disclosed.
The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) brokered the 2015 and later on the 2018 revitalized peace deal to end years of conflict since December 2013.
Conflict erupted when President Salva Kiir sacked his then Vice President Riek Machar, and the entire cabinet.
“We want to get rid of these toxic politics we are in today, the politics we are in today is for conflict, division and will not take forward this country,” Adwok said.
Adwok was a member of the former detainees (FD’s) a group of prominent politicians from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) who were detained on charges of treason in 2013 and later on set free.
He said that signing the revitalized peace agreement alone was not enough to bring peace and tranquility, adding that politicians need to sustain dialogue to end the hitches concerning implementation of the agreement.
“Our politicians are not talking to themselves that is why you find people fighting themselves, the issues happening can be solved only through political dialogue,” Adwok said.
