SPLM/A: An Ego 21 Miles Long

Still dwelling on the shocking episode of South Sudan's descent into oblivion.

 

 

Or is it SPLM/A: An Ego 21 Years Old? Either way, it is SPLM/A, the capricious demigod acrimoniously solely responsible for the rise and fall of South Sudan.

Looking all grown up, the ruling party has saddled itself with the responsibility of ordering South Sudan around as of 2005. Indeed, it has been a pain in any place in this country and for its people. With the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) at the helm, South Sudan has belonged on its knees.

15^th December 2013 is the watershed. If anything, that grim day shows that SPLM/A has not got over itself, its 21-year old ego.

Get me another beer. In 21 years of a ruthless and commendable armed struggle against political oppression and marginalization, the SPLM/A pounded the daylights out of Sudan’s Mundukuru Cult and had it so very right! This, however, also marked genesis of the day the liberation movement’s ego left the nest.

With Sudan fast fading away into the sunset of history, SPLM/A started crawling all over and soon became the demigod of South Sudan with its signature disdain for anyone of an opinion or view other than his. Instead of embracing flow and change, the Party quickly set its options in stone, most notably in the aftermath of South Sudan’s Independence on 9^th July 2011.

Amusing itself with this novelty, SPLM/A quickly drew down its opponents’ stock of political power. On paper, lots of things have looked good. SPLM/A has never been wrong about anything! The guerilla movement-turned-political party has pledged time and again to stay straight. Every South Sudanese was clapping away nonstop. The ruling party was populating like flies, elbowing out significant others in the political realm of nation building.

Then came December 2013 and the song got old in an odd twist. The party, having run out of formidable external opposition, turned inward, outwitted and burnt itself out in one massive fart in Juba.

 

Many observers could only label it then as another mammoth low for SPLM/A’s constant armchair quarterbacking. But it turned out to be worth getting all wound up about. On 15^th December 2013, the whole SPLM/A Establishment could not agree on what day of the week it was!

So, everybody got onto to play the blame game without looking in the mirror. All its leaders were having fits and trying to break things for attention. After the order and goodness of liberation, SPLM/A ended in a deep trench, and started slapping the people of South Sudan around. As a result, South Sudan is at war today just about everything.

This is not just how democracy dies. This is not about a new nation trying to connect the dots. This is not about a government pounding away at corruption, nepotism, tribalism and impunity. This is never about mature and responsible leadership crossing swords with misrule and misery in South Sudan.

This is bush league, the SPLM/A. This is a plain and simple fact of history over-running an old ego as SPLM/A keeps adding new coat of plaster to its old building blocks and tenets of liberation and nation building. Am I getting this right?

In all fairness, SPLM/A should have put horror aside and raised a nation. However, since 2005 the ruling party has yielded nothing but the specter of horror and sorrow for its country and people. With its growing derivatives of current SPLM/A Proper, SPLM/A Opposition, SPLM-DC and potential SPLM/A Collective Leadership, SPLM/A Mainstream and so forth, I weep for the future of this country. It is nice business for the select few of the liberation camp, riding around town in Hummers. They have got more money than sin. Give me a break; one more beer, please.

That 21-year old ego has it that SPLM/A leaders get into politics and stay until they get old and die. They own this country; they own us. We the people, if memory serves me right, weigh as little as one pound in our country. SPLM/A has played fast and loose with our fate and that of South Sudan. That pretty much means nothing. We have been sold in a market stall next to a box of power struggle, ethnic loyalty and clan patronage. The next big score with be the collapse of South Sudan as a nation.

After all facts are written down, this will be remembered as a disgrace to our people and a betrayal of their trust laid out in neat piles for our enemies to laugh at and mock us for. SPLM/A will go down in history as a demigod that changes its mind on a whim and grabs at anything for a headline. This indelible mark of fallen leadership will be there even if the party works so hard to cover up its tracks.

In spite of being given a big head start by our people and friends, the ruling party of South Sudan has been in an agonizing limbo because of its ego dating back to 1983. It has always had the cockpit to itself alone. The family tree of our heroes and heroines starts and ends at SPLM/A, their leaders viciously contend. Nothing could be farther from the truth. All the same, SPLM/A “freedom-fighters” have been getting a good laugh at this while their government keeps coughing up billions in metered doses to the deserving bunch of our “liberators”.

Everybody else has been kept at arm’s length at best. The Party has got bad blood with every South Sudanese around her who is not deemed as a “freedom-fighter” or “liberator”.

It is not hard to see why the rest of South Sudanese are fighting their corner today. As a movement and then a party, SPLM/A has been fed and bred on ego, nothing else. For 21 years in the bush and about 9 years in power, SPLM/A has buried itself in the bottom and all around the rim of its political ego of the savior and the benefactor of South Sudan. Out in the bush of ‘liberation’ and beyond its doorstep of ‘political power’ as a ruling party, SPLM/A has cut our people to their bone by not knowing where the wheels are going to touch from 1983 to 2013 and beyond those confines. That little boy of 1983 grew up relying on his fists. No wonder then that he fell on his sword in 2013.

Any political leadership worth its salt knows when to hold in a fart. By God, SPLM/A doesn’t even know how to sleep in a standing posture! Nothing will ever change for the better in South Sudan unless the SPLM/A is dislodged from owning both the ‘ball’ and the ‘court’. I just so happen to agree with those calling for major reforms in the army, the SPLA. This is an army that lacks both battle competence and professional character in spite of whooping millions of US dollars lavished on it. A handful of trained gunmen can hold off a whole SPLA division for a week. Nobody is expecting to find any loyalty or agility in Bilpam, SPLA Headquarters in Juba.

If you however target this bunch of militias masquerading as our national army, you will have to deal with the blowback. Their political wing, SPLM, will force you to back off because the SPLA is its shoulder to cry on as well as its bully to silence dissent and arrest political vitality in South Sudan. This is the pattern that has been holding since 2005. Everything is not right about it.

Nothing has been right about the ruling party of South Sudan either. Its leadership is fast razing South Sudan into total oblivion. It has a knack for bragging and mixing things up. Their politicians do not look like the liars and opportunists they are. They want South Sudanese to look on sheepishly while the country is going up in flames. For that alone, they proclaim themselves as leaders.

What is wrong in the sight of God is right in the sight of our demigod, the SPLM/A. In this day and age, all of this is just going nowhere. There is always enough room at the top. The ruling party should have been pragmatic and resolute. They say you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. We all like that saying. Here is another one: handsome is as handsome does. But our handsome SPLM/A is having a bad case of gas. Where is my beer?

SPLM/A must stop seeing ‘government’ as a big cash cow. This party should acknowledge that it has never been much of a hand at governance. The sick leadership of this party should begin to understand that South Sudan is fighting to escape SPLM/A’s selfishness and short-sightedness by a hair’s breadth. The halcyon days of impunity and misrule are over.

South Sudanese are going to pull SPLM/A by the seat of its pants. The little we can tell its leadership is that their party is broken and needs fixing. The bad news is this: our country cannot afford being taken hostage by SPLM/A.  Nor will we wait for SPLM/A to come back to its senses, if any before. We will tighten the noose further and disclose to those courting power in the corridors of Juba to veer across those lanes so as to catch their exits as quickly as their bulging waistlines can allow them.

Those who have betrayed the voter mandate that got them elected in 2010 should quit in point blank terms. We need a different line of work, not gunfight. We the people want to pull our money out of the war profiteers’ pockets. We the people want to slip in a quiet warning to the warlords in Bilpam and elsewhere in this country. You will not only get a drop in status and salary. We the people will strain every muscle to pull you down in a hurry.

You can throw anything at us. But you will eventually choke on your greed and tyranny. You will drown in your “elitism” that has caused us a nation. You may even have to keep shooting until you get it right! But believe you me, your fond SPLM/A will blink first on this test of wills. We the people have become your party’s whipping post. You have always looked for a chance to celebrate a killing. But we will rally to cut you loose for good. In the not-too-distant future, your SPLM/A will drift away into its bloody chapter of misrule and misadventure. We the people will play with this disgrace into our victory over a myopic and despotic regime that goes around by the name of SPLM/A.

We have seen the SPLM/A for what it is, an ego that throws a fit if there is talk about a viable, stable and prosperous South Sudan. We do not wish to see murderers and thugs around anymore. Our small boys will put a centipede in your pants. You have sold so much bad beer to our people! Crawl off, SPLM/A, or get your head stuck in jar.

The only game in town is good governance, rule of law, justice and equality, unity and prosperity. If I were SPLM/A, I would long for such a headache! SPLM/A is not a success material. It is not even worth a spit. We the people will change the locks once SPLM/A is gone for its marriage of convenience with its fraternal twin NCP up in Khartoum. Because it belongs in Sudan, not South Sudan. There is nothing for those who are fighting to boost the flagging ego of a rotten party. You won’t even get crumbs from our table!

5^th May 2014