THEJUBAMIRROR
By Tearz Ayuen
To be a common Junubi and still breathing under the Kiir administration should be recognized as an achievement. This is because not only are we individually fighting for survival, but also that of what makes South Sudan South Sudan.
On a daily basis, we deal with a series of pressures – including rising market prices, poor working conditions, little pay that takes finance ministry over seven months to pay, extortion on the road by traffic cops, school fees, medical bills, rent, and the trauma that visits when you come to think that some friends afford to drink or sleep at Radisson Blu but you’re still struggling to foot beer bills at Sherikat’s Pub II or Jas Middle Class at Cinema.
Despite all the suicidal thoughts-arousing pressures, we maintain sanity. We mind about the Nile waters. We worry about the oil in Upper Nile, which we feel should be used for the benefit of future citizens. We think about Teak and gold in Equatoria too. And even the religious among us pray to Jesus to touch the hearts of leaders from the Bahr el Ghazal region – make them stop looting public resources with impunity.
This is because, it appears, we are extra-everything. We are extra strong, extra courageous, and extra determined to try and challenge leaders into being mindful of tomorrow. We are literally leading the leaders.
However, the little efforts by the “extra” ordinary citizens are unlikely going to yield fruits because the likes of the National Security Service and other concerned institutions are sleeping on the job. Literally picking their noses and tasting the snot like toddlers.
Imagine the youth are begging the nearsighted Treasonous Taban Deng Gai (vice president for Infrastructure Cluster) and Unity State governor to be leaders, to rethink their dangerous move to dredge and clear the Naam River.
But the intelligence department – whose main mandate is to “collect information, conduct analysis, and advise relevant authorities” – appears to see nothing wrong with such a dangerous and perfidious move.
And that’s why some of us barely respect the NSS, because its intelligence officers are not intelligent enough to detect a national security threat.
For majority of them, simple acts or utterances pose threat to the country and its sovereignty. For example:
Calling up a senior government official’s young wife in the evening just to say “Hi” is a national security threat that invites seven days at the blue house.
Dating a cabinet minister’s daughter while poor attracts John Rambo-looking NSS soldiers. They will track you down and drag your broke ass to the blue house.
Out of despair, complaining about salary delay while drinking makuei lueth at a bar in Konyo-konyo or Jebel market is rounded off to a threat to national security. An irate NSS officer will slap away your teeth. Ouch!
Growing big buttocks, huge neck, and protruding stomach while your uncle or aunt is not a member of the ruling class is considered an attack on the national security. They think you’re an informant on King Paul’s or Thomas Cirilo’s payroll. And blue house automatically becomes your residence for months.
Allowing your beards to grow to the length and size of that of President Salva Kiir is categorized as a crime of impersonation or mockery. Blue house boys will have you pluck off the beards, whisker by whisker.
Inability to speak Arabic at a checkpoint at night is a crime against the state. Explaining yourself in Dinka worsens the problem. If they don’t slap you into sobriety, you will be held for hours.
Driving with lights on by the blue house at night is an attempted attack on the heavily guarded facility. I hope you still have your teeth when you wake up from the kicks- and punches-induced comma the following day.
One morning, I spotted a friend near the facility located at crossroads in Jebel. He was looking around for something on the ground, by the road. When I called him up later that day to enquire, he said he was looking for his “dentures a soldier had slapped off” while trying to explain why he had to drive by the blue house that night. He was returning home from a hospital.
It’s absurd that the blue house doesn’t know that the following is one of the actual threats to the Kiir administration today, and it’s no brainer to realize it.
Egypt donates military supplies to Eagle House. It offers scholarships to students. It buys SSPDF biscuits. It gives the government generators. It just donated a building to the South Sudan embassy in Cairo. Egyptian doctors have been offering eye fistula and surgeries for free.
It’s not love. It’s bribery. Cairo wants to buy the Nile waters. It doesn’t want Kiir to build dams which produce hydroelectricity. All it wants is dredging and clearing of the Nile and resumption of Jonglei Canal…for its own agricultural developments.
If this occurs, fauna will die. Fish populations will dwindle, because most of eggs and larvae of other aquatic animals will be destroyed or contaminated during the process, according to studies. the sudd swamps will dry up. Wild animals will migrate to Ethiopia and remain there forever. Tourists won’t come anymore.
If the swamps and tributaries dry up, fishes will disappear for good. Communities around those water bodies won’t be able to farm anymore. They will starve.
If blue house wasn’t so fixated on the activities of writers, journalists, human rights and political activists, VP Taban, Water Minister Manawa Peter, Unity State Governor Monytuil, and several other senior officials would be this week interrogated for possibly being in bed with Cairo.
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ByTearz AyuenPosted on May 18, 2022
For now, the person who calls shots in Jonglei State affairs is Denay Chagor, in accordance with the powers vested upon him by President Salva Kiir, who drinks power from the fountain of the revitalized peace deal.
To those in Bor County who are hard of understanding, think of Jonglei as South Sudan and Chagor as President Salva Kiir. Many people hate Kiir, but they must respect him. Work under him.
In other words, Chagor is the God in the state, followed by Kucha. The governor has the last say in matters state. In his absence, Kucha takes charge. Ca ping?
Please also understand that the young politician from Akobo has not been made the ruler of Bor. He’s just the leader of the state, which comprises of several other counties. Bor Town is just the seat of his government. He is doing what Kuol Manyang and Maker Thiong did before – govern every community in the state.
The current power set up is in line with the September 2018 peace agreement, under the power-sharing deal, which offered Jonglei to SSOA. That’s why Chagor is the governor, deputized by Kucha, an SPLM.
The deal mandates the parties to work in a “collegial manner” during the transitional period – which will come to an end next year. Inshallah.
Now, swollen with ego, party superiority complex, inexperience, and tribalism, Kucha is unable to work well with his boss. This is probably because he hasn’t read Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power, which warns: Never outshine the master. Always make those above you feel comfortably superior.
Pertaining to the latest row on wrestling tournament, Kucha is right for canceling the games. His argument is moral in nature. He based it on the recent Mugali massacre.
But the question is, what made him do so? In reality, both the governor and his deputy have nothing to do with cultural and sports issues. Remember, there’s an official in charge of such matters in the state. He is called Peter Gatkuoth Makuac, the minister of Culture, Youth and Sports.
Secondly, did the deputy governor first seek an audience with his boss to discuss the matter? If Kucha wasn’t disdainful of Chagor, he would have said something like this:
“Look, beny-di. The state just lost about 35 people to raiders the other day. The communities are mourning. It would be immoral of us to allow the games to go on when the graves of our beloved ones are still wet. Let’s push the wrestling to another day.”
See? Would that have hurt?
Last year, President Kiir warned all state executives against infightings, which he thought were distracting and obstructing the state governments from engaging in development activities.
“This letter calls upon all members of the state executives to work together as one team to implement the peace agreement and to deliver services you are able to afford to our people,” writes President Salva Kiir in a letter dated April 12, 2021.
“You must operate as members of one government, respect yourselves and protocols irrespective of your political affiliation.”
Kucha has literally defied his two bosses – SPLM Chairman Kiir and Governor Chagor. He has been illegally calling shots since he assumed office, in blatant disregard of the governor. Several incidents in the state show that.
Recently, he authorized half-naked village chiefs and a brainless army general to crack down on young people whose attires and lifestyle are un-Dinka. Earlier, Kucha fired the town mayor, Dr Agoot Alier, without any consultation with Chagor.
These incidents show that Kucha is too crude politically to be the second most powerful person in the state. The man urinates divisiveness and incitement. His activities create or deepen ethnic divide there.
With these unending juvenile behaviors of the deputy governor towards his boss, shouldn’t Kiir just fire him? Shouldn’t the president put him back in the political nest in Juba to mature?
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ByTearz AyuenPosted on May 4, 2022
Nairobi, (May 4, 2022) – President Salva Kiir could not address mourners in Kenya last weekend because he had “consumed enormous amount of alcohol” the previous night, a political analyst has said.
Ex-President Mwai Kibaki, whose death was announced on April 22, served two terms from 2002 to 2013 as Kenya’s third president. He was 90 years old.
He oversaw the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that paved way for the independence of South Sudan in 2011.
Kiir traveled to Nairobi on April 28 to eulogize Kibaki, whose state funeral was attended by thousands of mourners the following day.
The service was also attended by other dignitaries – including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Ethiopia’s Sahle-Work Zewde, and Tanzania’s vice president, Philip Isdor Mpango.
After the incumbent president, Uhuru Kenyatta, who was the master of ceremony, gave President Kiir the podium, Cabinet Affairs Minister Dr Martin Elia Lomuro instead walked over to the podium and addressed the mourners.
This came after Uhuru announced that his counterpart could not speak because he had developed a “sore throat”.
“It was because the night before our president had consumed quite enormous amount of alcohol,” Dr Peter Biar Ajak said during the KTN breakfast show on Wednesday. “And he woke up the next day, he had a terrible hangover.”
Dr Biar, who is based in Washington DC, also blamed the matter on a health situation.
“He is ailing. There’s no doubt about it. His knees are killing him. With the hangover, he had a terrible headache. He couldn’t possible walk over and stand, leave alone to think about what to say and address…that gathering,” he stated.
The political analysts attributed the information on sources close to the president. However, this media outlet could not independently verify the allegations.
However, whenever he addresses reporters in Juba, Kiir always does so while seated, an observation that backs up Dr Biar’s assertions.
He also believes that Kiir could not speak at the funeral because he is “not very articulate” given his previous “terrible” speech in which he referred to Kenyan Deputy President as “Madam” William Ruto.
A former political detainee, Dr Biar was resettled to the United States in 2020 over fears that the government intended on harming him and his family.
