QUOTE:  “There are two ways of contesting, the one by law, and the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts.” From ‘The Prince,’ by Machiavelli

Whilst the entire nation of south Sudan is optimistically, albeit, restlessly, riding in the mass anxiety of the impending Referendum, the leaders of political parties that met in the Juba South-South Dialogue deliberately failed us in taking an advantage to sinisterly exculpate themselves by enshrining a culture of impunity.

Apparently, either because of our lack of total solidarity or due to the urgency of our unanimity needed as southerners in the forthcoming Referendum, this conference hurriedly and cynically glossed over crucial issues that should have been dealt with separately during the meeting or at an earlier time.

Instead, what took place in Juba was that the issue of Kiir’s blanket amnesty to the treasonous warlords and overt accommodation for duplicitous politicians were quietly sandwiched in-between.

Kiir's much lauded amnesty offer thus took centre stage and hence, no wonder it was endorsed unanimously.

Indeed, with those so-called renegade generals and political blackmailers lurking threateningly in our backyard to possibly sabotage or impede the Referendum, south Sudan citizens across the Nation anxiously wanted some sort of resolution to our disunity.

However, even though we wanted peace and tranquility to reign across our nation before the Referendum, the political price that we have to pay seems totally disproportionate and unfair.

Seriously, as concerned southerners, for us to simply cover up the sins of these habitual and professional dissenters is utterly unforgiveable and immoral, especially in the light of all the good things that they are now being sinfully showered with.

For how long are we going to passively allow some bigotedly aggrieved generals to hold the entire south Sudan nation hostage for some utterly selfish tribal or personal interests?

More aggravatingly, in a subversion of the law and all norms, President Kiir injudiciously and ill-advisedly, decided to reinstate back into the SPLA the Athors and Aturjongs, who personally and pre-conditionally retired from the Army to go and contest the elections.

Understandably, their reintegration into the highest ranks of the Army has caused some ruckus and might remain, for a long time a sore point in the SPLA.

Instantly, the regional and tribal equilibrium in our national army is changed, some may call it off-balanced, depends on who is looking at it.

Will the new military equation augur well for the South in the short or long run? Our leaders may have failed us already.

Notwithstanding all these, for how long are we, south Sudan nationals, going to silently and forgivingly allow hired killers of our dear compatriots to wreck our lives in a war of proxy for the benefit of the enemy?

And the major moral question that should have jerked the conscience of our leaders is: why should our South malcontents invariably gravitate toward Khartoum where they are then employed as proxies of the enemy against their own people?

To date, unfortunately for us, the majority of those now holding the reins of power in Juba and across the entire south Sudan nation, at one time or another in their haggard and unstable political life cycles, have infamously and lethally indulged in this game of treason.

They have all come back eventually, thanks to the Juba leaders’ naivety and infatuation of blessing the perpetrators with impunity, a practice now so recurrent and pervasive that even national thieves have taken benefit of.

Incontrovertibly, since the SPLM assumed reign in the South, the Kiir-Machar administration has spread, like butter over a slice of bread, the incorrigible culture of impunity for the looters of the money that should have been used for development.

No longer are we surprised when even Kiir’s prominent State governors, like Jonglei’s Kuol Manyang, Central Equatoria’s Clement Wani and Unity’s Taban Deng are seriously questioning the lack of vision and direction of the governance in Juba.

Taban succinctly exalted the dilemma by asking: “So how are we going to build a nation if we end up eating money and care less for development?”

Obviously, five years – and counting - of Kiir-Machar misrule won’t do much.

Inarguably, even the South Sudan Anti-Corruption Commission that's constitutionally empowered to uncover and apprehend the corrupters, has itself becomes asphyxiated and ineffectual.

Again, what kind of future society and nation are we aspiring to build when, for instance, the bank manager of the Nile Commercial Bank could simply bankrupt the bank and, next thing, just across the street, he sets up multiple million-dollar companies?

Whether it’s due to political dementia or leadership inertia, those wannabe political leaders that gathered at that Juba South-South Dialogue, heinously appeared as co-conspirators in a system that has clearly failed to chart out a proper system of governance for our new South Sudan Nation.

In retrospect, one very important issue that these self-proclaimed leaders should have frontally and frankly addressed is the issue post-referendum, or positively, post-independence governance and the envisaged political dispensation for south Sudan.

Due to the significance of the above, the political leaders that assembled in Juba should have imperatively demanded for a broadening of the Machar Post-Referendum Commission set up recently by Kiir, to include other southerners not in the GOSS.

Machar, for a fact, has had too many commissions assignments, many of which remain inconclusive and are still gathering too much dust in his office.

Furthermore, they should have demanded that this particular commission and others relevant to post-independence South Sudan, like drafting a new constitution, must be chaired not by Machar, (for goodness sake not again), but by non-ministers appointees.

In our new country, let’s wisely and positively emulate what all democratic and ‘civilized’ nations, including our neighbors, Kenya and Uganda, are doing.

In these countries, as a normal and accepted practice and tradition, Commissions are appropriately headed by legal experts, like retired judges, magistrates or University dons.

Absolutely, if need be, as Kenyans have done, the Juba government can hire a foreign expert or if need be, especially in our dire situation, Juba could ask a friendly country or world institutions, like the UN or others, to send us some experts, to perform these vital tasks.

Finally, if we genuinely envision a safer, peaceful and fairer South Sudan Nation tomorrow, let’s hear publicly some sincere heart-felt words of contrition and apology from these mercenary-cum-political miscreants for their past devious transmutations and lethal transgressions.

As deterrence for our future nation, let a law be instantly inserted in the new constitution of an independent South Sudan Nation that severely curtails, condemns and convicts any one who takes up arms and kills his fellow south Sudanese nationals.

Even the death penalty for such a crime, is not uncivilized.

Having regretfully failed us by their complicit perpetuation of the culture of impunity and corruption, the entire south Sudan political leaders should religiously embark on serious moral introspection and soul search if our new country will be unlike Somalia.

To the Lams, Athors, Tangyinges, Bona Maluals, Magayas and the Aturjongs: Next time you’re defeated or become disgruntled, politically or personally, please, retire completely from public life or better still, choose an honorable exile, even in the new country of the Islamic National Peoples Republic of Sudan, somewhere north of south!

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