Juba rulers failed John Garang
South Sudan's Dr John Garang who never lived to see the fruits of his struggle.
South Sudan is a case study of how poor leadership can cumulatively dash the hopes of a people who craved a prosperous and dynamic country after decades of subjugation. With the leadership of a gallant and determined leader, Dr John Garang, who never lived to see the fruits of his struggle, the mostly Christian and traditionalist south fought to free themselves from, among others, Shari’a law and exploitation to finally secede.
A comprehensive peace agreement signed in Kenya by Dr Garang and Sudan’s First Vice-President Ali Osman Taha in 2005 paved the way for independence. The death of Dr Garang in July of that year — the month he became Vice-President — in a plane crash as he returned home from Uganda made him the biblical Moses, who never saw Canaan.
The leaders who took over from him, led by President Salva Kiir Mardiit, oversaw the transition with a referendum that won with a 99 per cent landslide. Africa’s newest nation was born on July 9, 2011.
The ‘new dawn’ has, however, been nothing but pain to the people of South Sudan. The euphoria and hope never lasted and the new leaders went to war again in 2013. South Sudanese have seen the greatest day at independence and the darkest of days in the civil war that have followed it.
Grand corruption
Most government officials, who were mostly generals in the secessionist war, got enmeshed in grand corruption and the petrodollars from the oil sale were invested in real estate in the region. This was partly the reason for civil war, the main one being the struggle for power between the Dinka and the Nuer communities. By the time common sense prevailed among the leaders, 400,000 people had died.
Three years on, constitutional reforms, elections and a unified national army is still a pipe dream as 66 per cent of the population suffer famine, worsened by two years of drought and floods.
It is time the AU, Igad and the EAC, of which South Sudan is a member, shepherded the leadership in Juba onto the path of reconciliation and healing.
Mr Kigo is an environment officer. [email protected].
