Never vote unwisely, promised the dying man

By Malek Arol Dhieu
There is a saying goes “when they are talked about, people are killed and when they are left, they destroy people”. To me, they should be talked about so that when people are killed, they are killed for nothing, but the truth.
On hearing his constituency representatives campaigning for clean drinking water, construction of schools, roads and hospitals, maintenance of security, and amalgamation of the tribes through service delivery, a man told himself that he had gotten the possible solution to problems he had been withstanding for years.

To make sure he never misvoted, he asked how could I identify these great representatives during voting, and he was told to vote for SPLM which was then represented by a star. When votes were cast in 2010, he and his companions voted for SPLM on an account that clean drinking water, food, schools, hospitals, roads and security would be provided.
When all those he has voted for won the elections, they swallowed all their promises and chose to be backbenchers so that they could never be part of those who speak on behalf of their people. When privileges come, they almost announce publicly that let our people die so long we are surviving to tell their histories.

Five years later, the man became diseased but because his village was inaccessible and hospitalless, his condition was deteriorating from bad to worse. Because of lack of schools, his only son, who survived communal conflicts in which 5 of his elder brothers were killed, didn’t even learn how to write alphabetical letters.

His daughter whom he and his sons highly expected to earn on was raped just five days earlier before her scheduled marriage ceremony, leading to all grooms withdrawing their interests. Staying in the house with a raped daughter and an uneducated son, the old man was so hopeless that he always wished to finish himself had he energy to do so.
With the help of God, the only person who had a bicycle in the village volunteered to take the sick old man to the unequipped PHCU, and when ‘nurses by practice and not, nurses by profession’, tried diagnosing the old man, he was found to have multiple organ failure. When he weakly inquired what causes organs to fail, he was lectured that it’s caused by infections, injury and hypermetabolism.

But when one frustrated nurse said that you would have been saved had the government constructed hospitals to make awareness campaigns about diseases such as this or erected boreholes to make sure citizens drink clean water, he bit his finger and said we cast our votes for all you mentioned, but to date, none of them is implemented. Had they implemented, I would never have troubles that resulted to my incurable disease? 

Before I die, listen to me my dear children, lamented the sick old man in his deathbed! “We were blindfolded to vote for introverts, I mean lords of corruption”, when time for elections comes, always remember your vote is your power and life, NEVER VOTE THE WAY WE VOTED”. Vote wisely my children, goodbye! As if closing his eyes to moisten them, he never blinked and when nurses rushed to check respiration, he was gone. However long the elections may take, they will still be conducted, but remember one thing; though you forget all other things, please don’t forget to vote wisely.

Thanks for reading “Sowing the Seed of Truth”

The author is a medical student, University of Juba.