By Malek Arol Dhieu
Label me an instigator and the law labels you a violator of freedom of speech. Call me a frustrated citizen, and the law charges you of failure to provide services. Send security personnel to look for me and the law acquits me freely while God sends His security personnel to look for you. Ignore me and I increase my volume! Assassinate me and God assassinates you! So, forget about harming me and listen to me carefully!
Dear President and Vice Presidents, I know it’s a political tactic to leave the citizens unfed so that they wrestle with hunger rather than wrestling with you over the leadership, but one tragedy awaits you ahead; by the time you tragically step down, you will be located wherever you hide to appear before the law. Frankly, your exile life will be so disturbing.
As the citizens’ situation deteriorates, yours improves since the little they survive on still flows into your fat accounts. No other strong people like South Sudanese, one full month starving and nobody throws a stone at your luxury V8s. It would advantage the researchers if they study what nourishes the lives of South Sudanese when they sleep with rattling stomachs 24/7. August has gone with so many innocent souls, and the merciless hunger still counts.
Prices go uphill together with the dollar rate but neither the Juba City Council nor the presidency roars at the helpless black market for regulation or else shut down. So wicked is the black market! The market which has no direction, signpost, or bus station. The market whose owners are highly mobile, dishonest, insincere and devilish.
I wish I were a successor of prophet Ngundeng to charm the operators of black market to sink to hell with this bad business of theirs. The black market could easily be controlled, but because it’s the only market populated by the relatives and in-laws of the government officials, it operates under no regulations.
Unless in hell, there is no country on earth where a commodity attains a different price on daily basis. Widows never afford sandwiches for their children, insane and street children never get leftovers in the rubbish pits to feed on, and owners of small-scale businesses never save just a hundred South Sudanese pounds and the merciless Juba City Council charges them legally and illegally.
My dear president, what percentage does survival occupy here? Probably, 30%, meaning, 70% is starving to death. One evidence that has accentuated your political negligence is your muteness at the time you are expected to address the nation.
Your counterpart H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni addresses Uganda if Banyakole cows graze off the crops of Ugandan farmers, leave alone rising of commodities’ prices. Your former boss H.E. Omer Bashir used to go shopping alone and when he found one commodity having a different price it didn’t have yesterday, he immediately rushed to address the nation and made sure that particular shop owner was taught a lesson.
Your young counterparts H.E. Abiy Ahmed and H.E. Uhuru Kenyatta aren’t exceptional either, they maintain their economies in an affordable capacity. What are you here, I mean who are you here?
2025 is not far away from now, what did your campaign team members tell you they got at the grassroots? If they told you people at the grassroots are happy, then they are insincere. Come on my president, the people at the grassroots are as hungry as wolves, I mean as hungry as people on the grass tops.
What would you say you did to South Sudanese if they die of hunger the same year you campaign for presidency? They should have died of hunger in the past years, but not this particular year where you are expected to provide sauce and the citizens look for the bread. I’m frank dear SPLM Chairman, before hunger kills me, I must use this little energy to let the world know I and my fellow South Sudanese are starving to death.
The author is a medical student, University of Juba. He can be reached at malengaroldit@gmail.com or +211922332811.